Transcriptome sequencing of neurologic diseases associated genes in HHV-6A infected human astrocyte

// Qing Shao 1, 2, * , Zhe Lin 1, * , Xiaohui Wu 3, * , Junwei Tang 4 , Shuai Lu 1 , Dongju Feng 1 , Ci Cheng 1 , Lanqun Qing 1 , Kun Yao 1 , Yun Chen 1 1 Department of Immunology, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China 2 Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China 3 Genetic Data Analysis Group, Shanghai Biotechnology Corporation, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China 4 Liver Transplantation Center of The First Affiliated Hospital and Collaborative Innovation Center For Cancer Personalized Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China * These authors contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Yun Chen, email: chenyun@njmu.edu.cn Keywords: HHV-6, astrocyte, transcriptome sequencing study, neurologic diseases Received: December 20, 2015     Accepted: June 01, 2016     Published: June 17, 2016 ABSTRACT Human Herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) has been involved in the development of several central nervous system (CNS) diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis and glioma. In order to identify the pathogenic mechanism of HHV-6A infection, we carried out mRNA-seq study of human astrocyte HA1800 cell with HHV-6A GS infection. Using mRNA-seq analysis of HA1800-control cells with HA1800-HHV-6A GS cells, we identified 249 differentially expressed genes. After investigating these candidate genes, we found seven genes associated with two or more CNS diseases: CTSS, PTX3, CHI3L1, Mx1, CXCL16, BIRC3, and BST2. This is the first transcriptome sequencing study which showed the significant association of these genes between HHV-6A infection and neurologic diseases. We believe that our findings can provide a new perspective to understand the pathogenic mechanism of HHV-6A infection and neurologic diseases.