Effect of Epstein-Barr Virus DNA on the Transcriptional Profile of BALB/c Mouse Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells

To examine the effect of DNA from the Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) on the transcriptional profile of mouse peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), BALB/c mouse cells were isolated and cultured in the presence or absence of EBV DNA. RNA was extracted from these cells and then subjected to sequencing. We observed significantly enhanced expression of genes that play roles in proinflammatory processes including ones involved in autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. PBMCs were cultured in the presence or absence of EBV DNA at 37° C in the presence of 5% CO2. Triplicates of the culture conditions were performed. RNA was then extracted from these cells and a TruSeq RNA Sample Prep Kit v2 was used for library preparation. An Illumina NovaSeq 6000 System was then used for sequencing employing the NovaSeq 6000 S4 Reagent Kit. Trimmed reads were mapped to the Mus musculus mm10 reference genome with HISAT2. featureCounts was used to assign sequence reads to genomic features and then Limma-Voom was employed for differential expression (DE) analysis.