Abstract
BackgroundThe intestinal porcine enterocyte cell line (IPEC-J2) is a well-established model to study porcine intestinal physiology. IPEC-J2 cells undergo spontaneous differentiation during culture while changes in expression patterns of differentiated IPEC-J2 remain unclear. Therefore, this study was aimed to investigate the expression profiles of IPEC-J2 cells at the transcriptional level. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs), enriched pathways and potential key genes were identified. Alkaline phosphatase (AKP) and percentages of apoptotic cells were also measured.ResultsOverall, a total of 988 DEGs were identified, including 704 up-regulated and 284 down-regulated genes. GO analysis revealed that epithelial cell differentiation, apoptotic signaling pathway, regulation of cytokine production and immune system process, regulation of cell death and proliferation, cell junction complexes, and kinase binding were enriched significantly. Consistently, KEGG, REACTOME, and CORUM analysis indicated that cytokine responses modulation may be involved in IPEC-J2 differentiation. Moreover, AKP activity, a recognized marker of enterocyte differentiation, was significantly increased in IPEC-J2 after 14 days of culture. Meanwhile, annexin V-FITC/PI assay demonstrated a remarkable increase in apoptotic cells after 14 days of culture. Additionally, 10 hub genes were extracted, and STAT1, AKT3, and VEGFA were speculated to play roles in IPEC-J2 differentiation.ConclusionsThese findings may contribute to the molecular characterization of IPEC-J2, and may progress the understanding of cellular differentiation of swine intestinal epithelium.
Highlights
The intestinal porcine enterocyte cell line (IPEC-J2) is a well-established model to study porcine intestinal physiology
Identification of differentially expressed mRNAs in IPEC‐J2 cells Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between differentiated and undifferentiated IPEC-J2 cells were visualized by the scatter plot (Fig. 1A) and volcano plot (Fig. 1B)
Our results showed that response to virus, regulation of cell adhesion, epithelial cell differentiation, apoptotic signaling pathway, regulation of cytokine production and immune system process, and regulation of cell death and proliferation, were significantly enriched in biological process terms (BP) terms (Fig. 2A)
Summary
The intestinal porcine enterocyte cell line (IPEC-J2) is a well-established model to study porcine intestinal physiology. The intestinal porcine enterocyte cell line (IPEC-J2) is a non-transformed, permanent intestinal cell line, originally derived from the jejunum of a neonatal unsuckled piglet [1, 2]. IPEC-J2 cells exhibit strong similarities to primary intestinal epithelial cells, and serve as a wellestablished model to study effects of nutrients and other feedstuffs in the gut prior to in vivo evaluation. IPEC-J2 cells provide an ideal tool for studying the interactions between porcine intestinal epithelial cell and enteric bacteria [8, 9]. IPEC-J2 cells more closely mimic the human physiology than any other cell line of non-human origin.
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