Avian Interferon-Inducible Transmembrane Protein Family Effectively Restricts Avian Tembusu Virus Infection

Chen, Shilong; Wang, Long; Chen, Jieying; Zhang, Lanlan; Wang, Song; Goraya, Mohsan U.; Chi, Xiaojuan; Na, Yang; Shao, Wenhan; Yang, Zhou; Zeng, Xiancheng; Chen, Shaoying; Chen, Ji-Long

Our findings revealed that avian IFITM1 and IFITM3 were involved in cellular restriction of ATMUV infection. Next, we analyzed chicken (DF-1 cell origin) and duck (duck embryo fibroblasts origin) IFITM1 and IFITM3 genes repertoire. The cDNA sequences had been submitted in the Genbank database (accession numbers: chIFITM1, KX811737; chIFITM3, KX811740; dIFITM1, KX811738; dIFITM3, KX811739). BLASTX search showed that the chIFITM1 (KX811737) shared 100, 83.19, 45.11, 34.4, 30.7, and 35 .48% amino acid identity to IFITM1 protein of chicken (KC876032.1), coturnix (XM_015863379.1), duck (KX811738), human (AK290480.1), mouse (XM_006536238.1), and sus scrofa (XM_003124230.2), FIGURE 4 | IFITMs are significantly induced in DF-1 cells after ATMUV infection or treatment with IFN. DF-1 cells were infected with or without ATMUV at a MOI of 1.0 and harvested at 0, 12, 24, 36, and 48 hpi, respectively. qRT-PCR was performed to determine the relative mRNA expression of indicated IFNs (A-C) and IFITM (D-F) genes compared with that at 0 hpi. (G) DF-1 cells were treated with chicken IFNs (500 IU/mL) for 0, 16, or 24 h. qRT-PCR was performed to determine the relative mRNA expression of IFITM genes compared with that without IFN treatment. The mRNA levels were normalized to the endogenous β-actin level. Plotted are the average levels from three independent experiments with three replicates per experiment (means ± SD). Statistical significance was determined by one tail Student's t-test analysis. *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01.