📄 PCR array profiling of antiviral genes in human embryonic kidney cells expressing human coronavirus OC43 structural and accessory proteins

© 2018, Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature. Human coronavirus OC43 (HCoV-OC43) is a respiratory virus that usually causes a common cold. However, it has the potential to cause severe infection in young children and immunocompromised adults. Both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV were shown to express proteins with the potential to evade early innate immune responses. However, the ability of HCoV-OC43 to antagonise the intracellular antiviral defences has not yet been investigated. The potential role of the HCoV-OC43 structural (M and N) and accessory proteins (ns2a and ns5a) in the alteration of antiviral gene expression was investigated in this study. HCoV-OC43M, N, ns2a and ns5a proteins were expressed in human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK-293) cells before challenge with Sendai virus. The Human Antiviral Response PCR array was used to profile the antiviral gene expression in HEK-293 cells. Over 30 genes were downregulated in the presence of one of the HCoV-OC43 proteins, e.g. genes representing mitogen-activated protein kinases, toll-like receptors, interferons, interleukins, and signaling transduction proteins. Our findings suggest that similarly to SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, HCoV-OC43 has the ability to downregulate the transcription of genes critical for the activation of different antiviral signaling pathways. Further studies are needed to confirm the role of HCoV-OC43 structural and accessory proteins in antagonising antiviral gene expression.

keywords 🔗 innate immune (105) 🔗 immune response (314) 🔗 immune responses (142) 🔗 findings suggest (77) 🔗 accessory proteins (53) 🔗 young children (25)

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