Pyrexia in human herpesvirus 6 (HHV6) infected patients: A systems virology study

Abstract Given the critical function of HHV6 in the development of fever, rashes, febrile convulsions, encephalitis, and other serious diseases in immunocompromised patients, understanding the pathogenesis and cardinal cellular pathways involved in the virus's pathogenicity is essential. For this purpose a gene expression dataset was obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Differentially expressed genes (DEG) were identified based on their log fold change (LogFc) values. Seventy DEGs were found in the HHV6 vs. healthy control gene expression profile, with 68 upregulated and 2 downregulated genes. According to enrichment results, DEGs linked to inflammatory pathways were selected for further evaluations. Signaling network involved in HHV6 mediated Pyrexia was constructed based on gene interactions stored in Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database. We discovered seven genes with high probabilities of being involved in the febrile reaction triggered by HHV6 using functional enrichment analysis. These genes include the following: AIM2, CCL2, CASPAS 5, ZBP1, ISG15, IRF7, and CXCL10. Understanding the virus's pyrogenic pathway will help us to gain a deeper understanding of the disease. These DEGs are involved in a variety of aspects of inflammatory responses, most notably in the regulation of endogenous pyrogens that trigger fever.