RNA-sequencing analysis of gilt blood gene expression during Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrom Virus infection. Sus scrofa

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) infection of pregnant females causes fetal death and increased piglet mortality, but there is substantial variation in the extent of reproductive pathology between individual dams. This study used RNA-sequencing to characterize the whole blood transcriptional response to PRRSV in pregnant gilts during the first week of infection, and attempted to identify gene expression signatures associated with a low or high level of fetal mortality at necropsy, 21 days post-inoculation. Overall design: RNA-sequencing experiment compared whole blood gene expression in two groups of gilts: a low fetal mortality group (LFM) and a high fetal mortality (HFM) group (n=8 per group). Two sets of contrasts were perfromed. First, a time-course experiment in which gene expression at day 2 (D2) post-inoculation was compared to day 0 (D0-just prior to inoculation) and expression at day 6 post-inoculation was compared to D2. Second, a comparison of gene expression between LFM and HFM groups at each of the three time-points (D0, D2, and D6).