Transcriptional differences in cerebellar tissue of clinically suspected atypical pestivirus infected piglets

Abstract:

[Background] Atypical porcine pestivirus (APPV) as a new virus, it has been detected in various provinces in China in recent years. At present, most of the research reports on APPV focus on genomics and epidemiology. The pathogenic mechanism after infection of the host is unclear. [Objective] To investigate the pathogenicity of APPV in the cerebellum of infected piglets by high-throughput sequencing technology. [Methods] Three cerebellum of APPV-infected piglets of experimental group excluded from pathogens which can cause congenial tremors (CT) or neurological symptoms were sequenced with 3 cerebellum of healthy piglets of control group, and compare the differences in transcription levels between experimental and control groups. [Results] Two cDNA libraries were constructed in this study: APPV infected cerebellum tissue library and healthy cerebellum tissue library. Under the screening criteria of P≤0.05, |log2(FC)|≥0.263, a total of 381 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened, including 163 up-regulated genes and 218 down-regulated genes; 8 differentially expressed genes were randomly selected. The gene was detected by RT-qPCR and β-actin was used as an internal reference gene. The expression trends of eight differential genes were consistent with high-throughput sequencing. [Conclusion] A transcriptome study was conducted on the cerebellum samples of clinically infected piglets with APPV. Based on the GO and KEGG, we performed the functional annotation and classification of DEGs. It was found that the transcriptional levels of Pak4, Robo4, Sema3f, Wnt5a and other genes involved in axon guidance signaling pathways had significantly decreased. This result indicates that APPV infection may inhibit the axon guidance process in piglets. Furthermore, it inhibits the development of the central nervous system, which provides direction and guidance for further research on the pathogenic mechanism of APPV.