The Transcriptional Landscape of Marek's Disease Virus in Primary Chicken B Cells Reveals Novel Splice Variants and Genes.

ABSTRACT: Marek's disease virus (MDV) is an oncogenic alphaherpesvirus that infects chickens and poses a serious threat to poultry health. In infected animals, MDV efficiently replicates in B cells in various lymphoid organs. Despite many years of research, the viral transcriptome in primary target cells of MDV remained unknown. In this study, we uncovered the transcriptional landscape of the very virulent RB1B strain and the attenuated CVI988/Rispens vaccine strain in primary chicken B cells using high-throughput RNA-sequencing. Our data confirmed the expression of known genes, but also identified a novel spliced MDV gene in the unique short region of the genome. Furthermore, de novo transcriptome assembly revealed extensive splicing of viral genes resulting in coding and non-coding RNA tran

SUBMITTER: Bertzbach LD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6466439 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature