RNA-seq of hiPSCs-derived NPCs from 3 pairs of dizygotic discordant twins for Congenital Zika syndrome. Homo sapiens

Congenital Zika syndrome (CZS), caused by Zika virus (ZIKV) infection, has been associated to impairment of early brain development, particularly related to neural progenitor cells (NPCs) survival and growth. In this work we report in a high-throughput manner (RNA-Seq) the differences in the transcriptomes of hiPSCs(human induced pluripotent stem cells)-derived NPCs from 3 pairs of discordant twins for Congenital Zika syndrome (CZS). We found significant differences in the expression levels of genes relevant to the regulation of neural development between the NPCs from CZS-affected and non-affected twins, suggesting that epigenetic differences may contribute to the different susceptibilities of NPCs to ZIKV infection. Overall design: hiPSCs were generated from CD71+-cells, which were isolated from peripheral blood samples from three pairs of dizygotic/discordant twins. Then, NPCs were obtained after hiPSCs differentiation and cultivated for 4 days before the RNA was extracted and deep sequenced using Illumina HiSeq4000.