Integrated mRNA and miRNA profiling in NIH/3T3 cells in response to bovine papillomavirus E6 gene expression

Feng Pang; Mengmeng Zhang; Guohua Li; Zhenxing Zhang; Haifeng Huang; Baobao Li; Chengqiang Wang; Xiaohong Yang; Yiying Zheng; Qi An; Luyin Zhang; Li Du; Fengyang Wang

doi:10.7717/peerj.7442

Integrated mRNA and miRNA profiling in NIH/3T3 cells in response to bovine papillomavirus E6 gene expression

PeerJ. 2019 Aug 2:7:e7442. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7442. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Affiliation

¹ College of Animal Science and Technology, Hainan Key Lab of Tropical Animal Reproduction & Breeding and Epidemic Disease Research, Hainan University, Haikou, China.

Abstract

Delta bovine papillomaviruses (δBPVs) mainly infect cattle and cause fibropapillomas. δBPVs encode three oncogenes, E5, E6 and E7. The effect of E6 on microRNA (miRNA) and mRNA expression profiles is not well characterized. In this study, RNA sequencing and small RNA sequencing were used to explore alterations in mRNAs and miRNAs in E6 over-expressing NIH/3T3 cells (NH-E6) compared with control cells (NH-GFP). We found that 350 genes (181 upregulated and 169 downregulated) and 54 miRNAs (26 upregulated and 28 downregulated) were differentially expressed (DE) following E6 expression. The top 20 significantly enriched GO terms in "biological process" included inflammatory response, innate immune response, immune response, immune system process, positive regulation of apoptotic process, cell adhesion, and angiogenesis. We constructed a potential miRNA-gene regulatory network from the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and DE miRNAs. Finally, we selected 19 immune-response related DEGs and 11 DE miRNAs for qPCR validation. Of these, upregulation of 12 genes, Ccl2, Ccl7, Cxcl1, Cxcl5, Tlr2, Nfkbia, Fas, Il1rl1, Ltbp1, Rab32, and Zc3h12a, Dclk1 and downregulation of four genes, Agtr2, Ptx3, Sfrp1, and Thbs1 were confirmed. Ccl2, Ccl7, Cxcl1 and Cxcl5 were upregulated more than ten-fold in NH-E6 compared with NH-GFP. Also, upregulation of three miRNAs, mmu-miR-129-2-3p, mmu-miR-149-5p-R-2 and mmu-miR-222-3p, and downregulation of five miRNAs, mmu-miR-582-3p-R+1, mmu-miR-582-5p, mmu-miR-708-3p, mmu-miR-708-5p and mmu-miR-1197-3p, were confirmed. Our study describes changes in both mRNA and miRNA profiles in response to BPV E6 expression, providing new insights into BPV E6 oncogene functions.

Keywords: Bovine papillomavirus; E6; Immune response; RNA sequencing; miRNA sequencing; miRNA-gene network.

Grants and funding

This work was financially supported by the Hainan Natural Science Foundation Innovation Research Team Project (2017CXTD003). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.