Characterization of highly expressed novel hub genes in hepatitis E virus chronicity in rabbits: a bioinformatics and experimental analysis

Background Hepatitis E virus (HEV), which is the leading cause of acute viral hepatitis worldwide, usually causes self-limited infections in common individuals. However, it can lead to chronic infection in immunocompromised individuals and its mechanisms remain unclear. Rabbits are the natural host...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMC veterinary research 2022-06, Vol.18 (1), p.1-239, Article 239
Main Authors: Li, Manyu, Wang, Yan, Li, Kejian, Lan, Haiyun, Zhou, Cheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Antibodies
Antigens
Bioinformatics
Care and treatment
Chronic infection
Computational biology
Diagnosis
Feces
Gene expression
Genomes
Hepatitis
Hepatitis E
Hepatitis E virus
High-throughput screening (Biochemical assaying)
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus
Immune system
Infections
Interferon
Methods
Pathogenesis
Protein-protein interactions
Proteins
Rabbits
Risk factors
Software
Viruses
Zoonosis
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Summary:Background Hepatitis E virus (HEV), which is the leading cause of acute viral hepatitis worldwide, usually causes self-limited infections in common individuals. However, it can lead to chronic infection in immunocompromised individuals and its mechanisms remain unclear. Rabbits are the natural host of HEV, and chronic HEV infections have been observed in rabbits. Therefore, we aimed to investigate potential key genes in HEV chronicity process in rabbits. In this study, both bioinformatics and experimental analysis were performed to deepen the understanding of hub genes in HEV chronic infection in rabbits. Results Ninety-four candidate differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and the pathways they enriched were identified to be related with HEV chronicity. A total of 10 hub genes were found by protein-protein interaction (PPI) network construction. Rabbits of group P (n = 4) which showed symptoms of chronic HEV infection were selected to be compared with HEV negative rabbits (group N, n = 6). By detecting the identified hub genes in groups P and N by real-time PCR, we found that the expressions of MX1, OAS2 and IFI44 were significantly higher in group P (P < 0.05). Conclusions In this work, we presented that MX1, OAS2 and IFI44 were significantly upregulated in HEV chronic infected rabbits, indicating that they may be involved in the pathogenesis of HEV chronicity. Keywords: Hepatitis E virus, Chronic infection, Zoonosis
ISSN:1746-6148
1746-6148
DOI:10.1186/s12917-022-03337-x