Transcriptomics analysis reveals key lncRNAs and genes related to the infection of feline kidney cell line by panleukopenia virus

Abstract

Feline panleukopenia virus (FPV) can cause a viral disease and is responsible for severe leukopenia, gastroenteritis, and nervous signs with significant economic losses. Biochemically long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) can regulate the expression of mRNA in different ways, thereby causing the functional changes in host cells in response to viral infection. However, no attention has been paid until now to investigate the link between FPV pathogenesis and lncRNA. Here, through RNA sequencing, we performed a comprehensive analysis of lncRNA and mRNA in F81 cells after FPV-BJ04 strain infection. Consistent with previous studies, our data showed that lncRNAs have distinct features from mRNA. A total of 291 lncRNAs and 873 mRNAs were differentially expressed in F81 cells after FPV-BJ04 infection. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the differentially upregulated lncRNAs target genes were mainly involved in the positive regulation of transcription by RNA polymerase II and MAPK signaling pathway. The differentially downregulated lncRNAs target genes were mainly involved in the mRNA splicing and endocytosis. In addition, the differentially expressed immune pathway related genes that are targeted by lncRNA were also screened out to construct a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA axes as a potential novel biomarkers in regulating the immune response of feline against FPV infection. Our results contribute to understand the basic role of lncRNA in F81 cells during FPV infection and lay the foundation for following research.