Bisulfite-sequencing of HBV 1.1 mer-transfected huh7 cells

RNA chemical modifications have been found to play important biological functions. Among which, the 5-methylcytosine (m5C) modification has been reported to participate in viral replication through affecting RNA processing, such as export, decay, translation and so on. In this study, we performed bisulfite sequencing (BS-seq) on HBV 1.1-mer-transfected huh7 cells to identify the m5C sites in HBV mRNA and their function in virus replication was verified. To investigate the mechanism by which m5C methyltransferase NSUN2 suppresses HBV replication, altered global m5C levels in host genes in HBV 1.1-mer-transfected cells were examined by BS-seq. We found that the m5C modification of genes associated with antiviral immunity changed significantly after viral infection. Our study provide new molecular insights into the mechanism of HBV-mediated IFN inhibition Overall design: The changes of m5C modification in huh7 cells after HBV transfection were investigated by bisulfite sequencing.