Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in humans is ubiquitous and associated with various diseases. Remodeling of the immune microenvironment is the primary cause of EBV infection and pathogenesis; however, the underlying mechanism has not been fully elucidated. In this study, we used whole-transcriptome RNA-Seq to detect mRNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNA), and microRNA (miRNA) profiles in the control group, 3 days, and 28 days after EBV infection, based on the tree shrew model that we reported previously. First, we estimated the proportion of 22 cell types in each sample using CIBERSORT software and identified 18 high-confidence DElncRNAs related to immune microenvironment regulation after EBV infection. Functional enrichment analysis of these differentially expressed lncRNAs primarily focused on the autophagy, endocytosis, and ferroptosis signalling pathways. Moreover, EBV infection affects miRNA expression patterns, and many miRNAs are silenced. Finally, three competing endogenous RNA regulatory networks were built using lncRNAs that significantly correlated with immune cell types, miRNAs that responded to EBV infection, and potentially targeted the mRNA of the miRNAs. Among them, MRPL42-AS-5 might act as an hsa-miR-296-5p "sponge" and compete with target mRNAs, thus increasing mRNA expression level, which could induce immune cell infiltration through the cellular senescence signalling pathway against EBV infection. Overall, we conducted a complete transcriptomic analysis of EBV infection in vivo for the first time and provided a novel perspective for further investigation of EBV-host interactions.
Keywords: Epstein-Barr virus; immune microenvironment; long non-coding RNAs; microRNA; tree shrew.