RNA-seq analysis of the brain of mice following recombinant HSV-1 carrying the S302A mutation in vUNG and the repaired HSV-1 strain

To investigate the relationship between the host factor APOBEC1 and the viral factor vUNG in the pathogenesis of herpes encephalitis, wild-type and Apobec1-deficient mice were infected with vUNG mutants and their repaired strains. Brain tissues were collected, and host mRNA expression was analyzed using RNA sequencing. Overall design: Five-week-old C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) and Apobec1 knockout (Apobec1-KO) mice were intracranially infected with 1,000 PFU of a recombinant HSV-1 harboring the S302A mutation in vUNG or a repaired version of HSV-1. The mice were sacrificed 5 days post-infection. To investigate the impact of APOBEC1 and vUNG on host gene expression, total RNA was extracted from the brain and subjected to RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis.