Deep sequencing of primary human lung epithelial cells challenged with H5N1 influenza virus reveals a proviral role for CEACAM1

Siying Ye; Chris Cowled; Cheng-Hon Yap; John Stambas

Our HiSeq analysis described herein focused on differentially regulated genes following H5N1 73 infection and identified carcinoembryonic-antigen (CEA)-related cell adhesion molecule 1 74 (CEACAM1) as a key gene of interest. CEACAM1 (also known as BGP or CD66) is expressed on 75 epithelial and endothelial cells (11), as well as B cells, T cells, neutrophils, NK cells, macrophages and 76 dendritic cells (DCs) (12) (13) (14) . Human CEACAM1 has been shown to act as a receptor for several 77 human bacterial and fungal pathogens, including Haemophilus influenza, Escherichia coli, Salmonella 78 typhi and Candida albicans, but has not as yet been implicated in virus entry (15) (16) (17) . There is however 79 emerging evidence to suggest that CEACAM1 is involved in host immunity as enhanced lymphocyte 80 expression was detected in pregnant women infected with cytomegalovirus (18) and in cervical tissue 81 isolated from patients with papillomavirus infection (19) . 82