Analysis of EBOV-Huh7 Transcriptomic Landscape

Ebola virus is a devastating pathogen with limited treatment options. A major challenge in developing therapies is understanding how the virus dynamically hijacks our cells over time. This study provides a time-resolved map of the host transcriptional landscape during Ebola virus infection. We reveal that the virus causes minimal early changes but extensively reprograms human gene expression later, creating specific co-expression networks that are essential for viral replication. By integrating these networks with virus-host interaction data, we identified key human genes and demonstrated that silencing them impairs viral replication. Furthermore, we repurposed existing drugs, identifying Sorafenib and Thioguanine as effective inhibitors. Our work uncovers the temporal strategy of Ebola virus and establishes a framework for discovering host-directed therapies against this and other highly pathogenic viruses.