Identification of the miRNA-mRNA regulatory network of Toxoplasma gondii based on RNA-seq

To explore the potential miRNA‑mRNA regulatory mechanism and relevant signaling pathways, we profiled host miRNA and mRNA levels during T.gondii infection with microarrays, bioinformatics, and integrated genomics analyses. Reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT‑qPCR) was performed to validate the reliability of microarray data.The present study performed global expression analysis of 41,000 genes and 2,549 microRNAs using the Agilent Whole Human Genome 8 x 60k slide formats printed using Agilent's 60-mer SurePrint technology, respectively. Compared with the controlled cells, a total of 3,568 mRNAs were significantly differentially expressed, including 1,475 upregulated genes (fold change ≥2) and 463 downregulated genes (fold change ≤0.5). The SK-N-SH cells were passaged every 2‑3 days to maintain exponential growth. SK-N-SH cells were left uninfected or infected (MOI = 3) for 24 hours with RH tachyzoites.All the cells were constructed from at least three indepen¬dent experiments.