Project description:Infections with bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) contribute significantly to health-related economic losses in the beef and dairy industries and are widespread throughout the world. Severe acute BVDV infection is characterized by a gastrointestinal (GI) inflammatory response. The mechanism of inflammatory lesions caused by BVDV remains unknown. The interstitial cells of Cajal (ICC) network plays a pivotal role as a pacemaker in the generation of electrical slow waves for GI motility, and it is crucial for the reception of regulatory inputs from the enteric nervous system. The present study investigated whether ICC were a good model for studying GI inflammatory lesions caused by BVDV infection. Primary ICC were isolated from the duodenum of Merino sheep. The presence of BVDV was detected in ICC grown for five passages after BVDV infection, indicating that BVDV successfully replicated in ICC. After infection with BVDV strain TC, the cell proliferation proceeded slowly or declined. Morphological changes, including swelling, dissolution, and formation of vacuoles, of ICC were observed, pointing to quantitative, morphological and functional changes of ICC. Therefore, RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was performed to investigate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in BVDV-infected ICC and to further explore the molecular mechanism of underlying quantitative, morphological and functional changes of ICC. Eight hundred six genes were differentially expressed upon BVDV infection, of which 538 genes were upregulated and 268 genes were downregulated. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses showed that the 806 DEGs were significantly enriched in 27 pathways, including cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction, interleukin (IL)-17 signaling, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathway. Finally, 21 DEGs were randomly selected, and the relative repression levels of these genes were tested using the quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) to validate the RNA-Seq results. The results showed that the related expression levels of 21 DEGs were similar to RNA-Seq. This study is the first to establish a new infection model for investigating GI inflammatory lesions induced by BVDV infection.

Project description:Small non-coding RNAs have emerged as key players in modulation of viral infection. A unique example is the critical dependence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) on the liver-specific microRNA (miRNA), miR-122, which has surfaced as therapeutic target. Here, we used crosslinking immunoprecipitation (CLIP) of the Argonaute (AGO) protein to characterize strengths and specificities of miRNA interactions across 15 viral genomes. Intriguingly, replication of pestiviruses, which are major threats to milk and meat industry, critically depends on cellular miR-17 and let-7 interactions with the viral 3âUTR. Like HCV, miRNA binding enhanced translation and prevented viral RNA degradation. On the cellular transcriptome, pestiviral miR-17 sequestration in vitro and ex vivo conferred reduced AGO binding and functional mRNA de-repression for miR-17 targets. These findings generalize the concept of RNA virus dependence on cellular miRNAs, highlight such interactions as therapeutic targets, and connect functional regulation of the transcriptome in primary cells to miRNA sequestration. Several subseries of analyses were performed. For each sample, subseries to which it belongs are indicated. In the âVirus AGO-CLIPâ subseries, AGO-CLIP was performed on cells infected with virus as indicated. Processed reads were aligned to the host genome (hg18 or BosTau7) and to the respective viral genome. The primary data of interest from this subseries concerns AGO binding to viral RNA, and is given as processed data file âTable S1â. In the âVirus AGO-CLIP: BVDV vs. Mockâ subseries, AGO-CLIP was performed on four replicates each of BVDV and mock infected MDBK cells. CLIP reads aligned to BosTau7 were clustered, and differential analysis was performed on binding to each cluster. In addition, differential analysis of AGO bound miRNAs was performed. The associated data is given as processed data file âTable S3 and S4â. In the âAGO-CLIP: tinyLNA-17 vs. Mockâ AGO-CLIP was performed on four replicates each of tinyLNA-17 and mock treated MDBK cells. CLIP reads aligned to BosTau7 were clustered, and differential analysis was performed on binding to each cluster. The associated data is given as processed data file âTable S5â. In the âRNA-seq: BVDV vs. Mockâ subseries, mRNA-seq was performed on two replicates each of MDBK cells infected with different biotypes of BVDV or with miR-17 seed site mutant BVDV. The latter (incl. mock controls) were trans-complemented with the corresponding mutated miR-17. Differential gene expression analysis was performed between selected conditions. The associated data is given as processed data file âTable S6â.

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