Nanostring of 3D hiPSC-derived neurons infected with rabies virus-wild type-thai strain (WT-TH) and rabies virus-challenge virus standard 11 (CVS-11) against uninfected controls at 8 and 24 hours post-infection

This experiment is part of the project that primarily aims to utilize 3D hydrogel-based hiPSC-derived neuronal model to study rabies virus infection in the central nervous system. Having established the optimal 3D neuronal model, we then investigated the growth kinetics of two strains of rabies virus (TH and CVS-11) and comparatively analyzed the 2D and 3D culture models. We performed a gene expression analysis using NanoString to determine whether changes in gene expression could explain the differences in virus growth kinetics of two strains of rabies virus observed between the 2D and 3D neuronal culture models. Gene expression analysis of the neuropathological pathway observed during rabies virus infection demonstrated a vast number of differentially expressed genes in the 3D model as compared to the 2D model. In this study, 36 samples in total were analyzed including the 2D and 3D samples infected with two strains of rabies virus (WT-TH and CVS-11) over 0, 8, and 24 hours post-infection with three replicates. These also include mock-infected controls at each time point.