Human Brain Microvascular Endothelial cells infected with H1N1 virus

Contributors: Xianwu Lin, Doaa Higazy, Min Cui Influenza virus was known as a respiratory pathogen, however further studies have indicated its ability to cause brain diseases. In this study, the human brain microvascular endothelial cell (HBMEC) was used as a cell model for the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and challenged with H1N1 to comprehensively study the inflammatory response of HBMEC at the early infection. After infected with influenza A virus (A/WSN/33) H1N1, the protein samples were collected from HBMEC in different time points by RIPA buffer that were further used to detect the presence of viral Nucleoprotein (NP) by western blotting. RNA was reverse transcribed and cDNA was amplified for the vRNA detection by qPCR. cDNA library was constructed from the collected RNA samples post 12h of infection and then sequenced by BGISEQ-500. Furthermore, the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) showed that several cytokines and chemokines were upregulated, and the gene ontology (GO) analysis exhibited the activation of several biological processes that may alter the BBB permeability leading to BBB dysfunction.