Dysregulation of Long Non-coding RNA (lncRNA) Genes and Predicted lncRNA-Protein Interactions during Zika Virus Infection

Arunachalam Ramaiah; Deisy Contreras; Vineela Gangalapudi; Masumi Sameer Padhye; Jie Tang; Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami

We utilized a Vero cell-based in vitro infectious culture system to investigate the ZIKV effect on the expression of lncRNAs. Vero cells supported robust lytic infection by the Asian ZIKV genotype (Fig. 1A) . The viral-mediated cytopathic effects (CPEs), consisting of cell rounding and lysis, were observed at 48 hpi. The Zika viral genome replication was quantified by RT-qPCR, as described in the Methods section. At 48 hpi, several log increases in the ZIKV genome replication was observed (Fig. 1B) . The virus infection in the Vero cells was also confirmed by detecting viral envelope proteins in the cytoplasm by Immunofluorescence Assay (Fig. 1C) . Table 2 ). A heat map of these differentially expressed lncRNAs is given in Figure 2 .