Host transcriptome determinants for African Swine Fever (ASF)

In field studies and carefully controlled artificial infections, there is host variation in response to African Swine Fever (ASF) infections. To better understand the mechanisms underlying this diversity and distinguish between resilient and susceptible pigs to African Swine Fever (ASF), the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were studied between the recovered versus non-recovered pigs before and after an infection challenge and also among non-recovered animals over time. In total, 17 Babraham pigs were sampled. Twelve animals were randomly immunized with low virulent ASFV isolate, and the others received the sham vaccine. All animals were then challenged with the virulent ASFV isolate 18 days after the immunization. Except for five animals, all showed clinical signs and dead between 4 and 6 days later. RNA sequencing was done for whole blood samples collected pre-infection, one day, and one week post-infection.

在野外研究与严格受控的人工感染实验中，宿主对非洲猪瘟（African Swine Fever, ASF）感染的应答存在个体差异。为深入解析该应答多样性背后的分子机制，并区分对非洲猪瘟具有抵抗力与易感性的猪只，研究团队对感染前后的康复猪与非康复猪，以及随时间变化的非康复动物开展了差异表达基因（differentially expressed genes, DEGs）分析。本研究共采集17头巴布拉姆猪（Babraham pigs）样本：其中12头猪随机接种低毒力非洲猪瘟病毒（African Swine Fever Virus, ASFV）分离株，其余猪只接种安慰剂疫苗。免疫接种18天后，所有受试动物均接受强毒力非洲猪瘟病毒分离株攻毒。除5头猪只外，其余均在攻毒后4至6天内出现临床症状并死亡。研究人员对感染前、感染后1天及感染后1周采集的全血样本进行了RNA测序（RNA sequencing）。