Transcriptome analysis of human macrophages upon chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection reveals regulation of distinct signaling and metabolic pathways during the early and late stages of infection

Priyanshu Srivastava; Sakshi Chaudhary; Surbhi Malhotra; Binuja Varma; Sujatha Sunil

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17158

Transcriptome analysis of human macrophages upon chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection reveals regulation of distinct signaling and metabolic pathways during the early and late stages of infection

Heliyon. 2023 Jun 20;9(6):e17158. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17158. eCollection 2023 Jun.

Authors

Priyanshu Srivastava¹, Sakshi Chaudhary¹, Surbhi Malhotra², Binuja Varma², Sujatha Sunil¹

Affiliations

¹ Vector-Borne Diseases Group, International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB), New Delhi, India.
² Tata Consultancy Services, New Delhi, India.

Abstract

Macrophages are efficient reservoirs for viruses that enable the viruses to survive over a longer period of infection. Alphaviruses such as chikungunya virus (CHIKV) are known to persist in macrophages even after the acute febrile phase. The viral particles replicate in macrophages at a very low level over extended period of time and are localized in tissues that are often less accessible by treatment. Comprehensive experimental studies are thus needed to characterize the CHIKV-induced modulation of host genes in these myeloid lineage cells and in one such pursuit, we obtained global transcriptomes of a human macrophage cell line infected with CHIKV, over its early and late timepoints of infection. We analyzed the pathways, especially immune related, perturbed over these timepoints and observed several host factors to be differentially expressed in infected macrophages in a time-dependent manner. We postulate that these pathways may play crucial roles in the persistence of CHIKV in macrophages.

Keywords: CHIKV; Macrophages; Metabolic pathways; Transcriptome.