Abstract
BackgroundAfrican swine fever (ASF) is a re-expanding devastating viral disease currently threatening the pig industry worldwide. MicroRNAs are a class of 17–25 nucleotide non- coding RNAs that have been shown to have critical functions in a wide variety of biological processes, such as cell differentiation, cell cycle regulation, carcinogenesis, apoptosis, regulation of immunity as well as in viral infections by cleavage or translational repression of mRNAs. Nevertheless, there is no information about miRNA expression in an ASFV infection.MethodsIn this proof-of-concept study, we have analyzed miRNAs expressed in spleen and submandibular lymph node of experimentally infected pigs with a virulent (E75) or its derived attenuated (E75CV1) ASFV strain, as well as, at different times post-infection with the virulent strain, by high throughput sequencing of small RNA libraries.ResultsSpleen presented a more differential expression pattern than lymph nodes in an ASFV infection. Of the most abundant miRNAs, 12 were differentially expressed in both tissues at two different times in infected animals with the virulent strain. Of these, miR-451, miR-145-5p, miR-181a and miR-122 presented up-regulation at late times post-infection while miR-92a, miR-23a, miR-92b-3p, miR-126-5p, miR-126-3p, miR-30d, miR-23b and miR-92c showed down-regulation. Of the 8 differentially expressed miRNAs identified at the same time post-infection in infected animals with the virulent strain compared with animals infected with its attenuated strain, miR-126-5p, miR-92c, miR-92a, miR-30e-5p and miR-500a-5p presented up-regulation whereas miR-125b, miR-451 and miR-125a were down-regulated. All these miRNAs have been shown to be associated with cellular genes involved in pathways related to the immune response, virus-host interactions as well as with several viral genes.ConclusionThe study of miRNA expression will contribute to a better understanding of African swine fever virus pathogenesis, essential in the development of any disease control strategy.
Highlights
African swine fever (ASF) is a re-expanding devastating viral disease currently threatening the pig industry worldwide
Submandibular lymph node (SLN) and spleen samples from two pigs intramuscularly inoculated with 104 HAU of the España- 75 (E75) virulent strain [10] and submandibular lymph node (SLN) and spleen samples from two pigs inoculated with same amount (104 HAU) of the E75CV1, were used
Animal infection Pigs inoculated with the E75CV1 attenuated strain developed no clinical signs while pigs inoculated with the E75 virulent strain developed typical African swine fever clinical signs [10]
Summary
African swine fever (ASF) is a re-expanding devastating viral disease currently threatening the pig industry worldwide. African swine fever (ASF) is an infectious disease affecting domestic and wild pigs caused by African swine fever virus (ASFV) belonging to the Asfarviridae family. ASF genomes contain between 150 and 175 ORFs with 34 of them encoding for structural viral proteins and so far, half of them do not have any known function [2]. The disease is characterized by an acute form that leads to fever, hemorrhages and several lesions causing death in a short period of time. Histopathological evaluation shows typical alterations of the disease such as macrophage infiltrations and apoptotic cells together with a cytokine storm characteristic of the terminal phase in ASF infections according to previous studies [9]
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