The antiviral state has shaped the composition of the vertebrate interferome (RNA-Seq dataset2)

This is the second dataset of the project PRJEB29677.The zinc-finger antiviral protein (ZAP) is an ancient ISG that recognizes CpGs in viral RNAs and targets their degradation. To investigate the influence of interferon stimulated ZAP on the host transcriptome, we defined the interferomes of wild-type and ZAP KO human cells. Strikingly, in the absence of ZAP, the majority of IRGs were no longer downregulated in response to interferon. In contrast, the overall number of ISGs remained unchanged in the absence of ZAP. Similarly, exogenous ZAP expression, reduced the abundance of multiple host transcripts, most of which are known IRGs. We propose that interferon-stimulated ZAP reduces the abundance of relatively CpG-rich host transcripts, providing a mechanistic explanation for the repression of multiple IRGs. Thus, we speculate that antiviral effectors have not only selected compositional biases in viral genomes but have likely shaped the composition of the vertebrate interferome.