Transcriptomic alterations in a myoblast cell line infected with four distinct strains of Trypanosoma cruzi

We examined the extent to which different Trypanosoma cruzi strains induce transcriptomic changes in cultured L6E9 myoblasts 72 hours or 48 hours after infection with four strains of the parasite [Brazil (TCI); Y, CL and Tulahuen (TC II) strains]. Expression of 6,289 distinct fully annotated unigenes was quantified with 27k rat oligonucleotide arrays in each of the four replicas of all control and infected RNA samples. Considering changes >1.5-fold and p-val<0.05, the Tulahuen strain was the most disruptive to host transcriptome, with (17% significantly altered genes), while in Y strain altered only 6% of the genes were altered. The significantly altered genes in the infected cells were largely different among the four strains, with only 21 genes changed in the same direction being similarly changed by all four strains. However, when expression ratios of all genes were compared, myoblasts infected with different strains showed proportional overall genbe expression alterations. These results indicate that infection with different parasite strains modulates similar but not identical pathways in the host cells.本研究探究了不同克氏锥虫（Trypanosoma cruzi）毒株感染培养的L6E9成肌细胞后，于感染后48小时或72小时诱导宿主转录组变化的程度；本次实验使用了该寄生虫的4个毒株：Brazil（TCI型）、Y、CL以及Tulahuen（TC II型）毒株。 所有对照与感染样本的RNA均设置四次生物学重复，通过27k大鼠寡核苷酸芯片对6289个已完成完整注释的独立单基因（unigene）的表达量进行定量分析。以表达变化倍数>1.5倍且P值<0.05作为显著性筛选标准，Tulahuen毒株对宿主转录组的扰动最为显著，有17%的基因发生显著性表达变化；而Y毒株仅使6%的基因出现表达改变。 不同毒株感染的细胞中，发生显著性表达变化的基因整体差异较大，四个毒株仅能共同诱导21个基因发生同向的表达改变。不过，当对所有基因的表达比率进行比较时，不同毒株感染的成肌细胞整体呈现出比例相似的基因表达变化模式。 上述结果表明，不同寄生虫毒株的感染会在宿主细胞中调控相似但并不完全一致的信号通路。