The Influenza non-structural protein 1 (NS1) operates targeted mechanisms to suppress immune gene expression.

Influenza non-structural protein 1 (NS1) has been well cited to ellicit an inhibitory effect of immune gene expression thus resulting in the curtailment of efficient antiviral immunity. However the mechanisms and gene networks subjected to this immuno-suppression are unclear. We designed an RNA-Seq study to explore this viral trait and characterize the induced gene expression in response to wildtype (native) Influenza A infection. We have also developed an Influenza mutant virus that is deficient in its ability to expression NS1 (WSNdelNS1), thus our study incorporates a virus that will enable induced transcriptomic comparison between wildtype and mutant viral infections. We infected 293T cells with wildtype (native) influenza A/WSN/1933 (H1N1) or with a mutant virus deficient in encoding fully-functional NS1 (WSNdelNS1). These infection experiements were used to perform RNA-Seq analysis to assess for significant changes in the transcriptome of infected cells in response wildtype/mutant influenza infection.