Genome-wide analysis of differentially expressed genes and the modulation of PEDV infection in Vero E6 cells

Zhang, Hewei; Liu, Qinfang; Su, Weiwei; Wang, Jianke; Sun, Yaru; Zhang, Junfeng; Shang, Ke; Chen, Zhenhai; Cheng, Shipeng; Wu, Hua

PEDV remains one of the most important swine diseases that infects pigs of all ages. It causes devastating viral enteric disease in piglets with a high mortality rate, leading to significant threats and huge economic loss to the pork industry. In this study, a transcriptomic shotgun sequencing (RNA-Seq) procedure was used to study gene responses against PEDV infection. Genome-wide analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was performed in Vero E6 cells post-PEDV infection. mTOR signaling pathway activator-MHY1485, and inhibitor-PP242 were used to study the antiviral function. Results revealed that the IRF3 was significantly up-regulated post-PEDV infection. Although most of the IFN-regulatory and –related genes evaluated in this study were either down-regulated or remained unchanged, IL11 behaved significantly up-regulated, with the peak at 16 hpi. Nearly 90% of PEDV infections were suppressed in the PP242 pretreated cells whereas the reverse effect was observed in the MYH1485 pretreated cells. Results indicated that the mTOR signaling pathway played a vital role in the PEDV antiviral regulation in the Vero E6 cells. Future studies will contribute to better understand the cellular antiviral mechanism against PEDV.