Comparative host and viral transcriptomic analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) in horses infected with EHV-4 or EHV-1

Our study goal was to understand the differences in pathogenic potential between EHV-1 and EHV-4 during infection, despite their genomic similarities. We analyzed the host and viral transcriptomes of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from horses infected with EHV-1(n=7) or EHV-4 (n=5) by performing mRNA sequencing. Stranded mRNA cDNA libraries were created using the Illumina TruSeq Stranded mRNA kit, and sequencing was performed on the Illumina HiSeq 4000 in a 2 x 150 bp paired-end format. Here we are only including the raw sequenced data for the EHV-4 group, as the EHV-1 group sequences we used for this comparison are already available under SRA BioProject PRJNA705083.