Project description:We will use the EMC/2012 strain of the novel beta Coronavirus called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). It was initially passaged on Vero E6 cells in Saudi Arabia before being sequenced at the Erasmus Medical College in Rotterdam, Netherlands by Dr Ron Fouchier. We propose to perform a time course of infection of hCoV-EMC on MRC5 cells (Human Lung origin) and Vero cells (African Green Monkey Kidney cells). Both cell lines readily grow and replicate the virus. Importantly these cell lines show signs of Cytopathic effect (CPE), such as cell rounding and release from the petri dish that coincide with time points high virus replication demonstrating the effects of virus replication on the cells. Transcriptomic analysis will be performed after infection with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV (Urbani strain) to compare the host gene induction that occurs during infection.
Project description:We will use the EMC/2012 strain of the novel beta Coronavirus called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). It was initially passaged on Vero E6 cells in Saudi Arabia before being sequenced at the Erasmus Medical College in Rotterdam, Netherlands by Dr Ron Fouchier. We propose to perform a time course of infection of hCoV-EMC on MRC5 cells (Human Lung origin) and Vero cells (African Green Monkey Kidney cells). Both cell lines readily grow and replicate the virus. Importantly these cell lines show signs of Cytopathic effect (CPE), such as cell rounding and release from the petri dish that coincide with time points high virus replication demonstrating the effects of virus replication on the cells. Transcriptomic analysis will be performed after infection with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV (Urbani strain) to compare the host gene induction that occurs during infection. MRC5 and Vero E6 cells will be infected at an MOI of 0.1 and 3 and RNA harvested from cells at 24 and 48 post infection. RNA will be processed for library creation and sequenced on an Illumina Hiseq. Sequencing reads will be analyzed and compared across the time course and between each virus to identify common response pathways induced during infection as well as unique pathways specific to each virus.
Project description:Human circular RNAs can function in competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network by sponging miRNA and regulating gene expression. Viruses are evolved to regulate noncoding RNAs such as miRNAs and circRNAs to facilitate their propagation and pathogenesis. Studies on how host ceRNAs upon human coronavirus infection were scarce, and the functions of circRNAs during the infection of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has not been deeply revealed. Therefore, we conducted a whole transcriptional profile (RNA-seq) analysis to compare the expression of circRNAs, miRNAs and mRNAs between the mock-infected and MERS-CoV-infected human lung adenocarcinoma (Calu-3) cells. Integrated analysis of ceRNAs revealed putative viral pathogenic circRNAs induced by MERS-CoV and their interplay with miRNAs and genes. Our study offered new insights into the mechanisms of interplays of MERS-CoVs and hosts, and established a model promising to be applied to other coronavirus or other viruses for the identification of novel host factors.