Detection of small RNAs generated during early infection of human HEK 293 cells by the alphavirus Sindbis virus

A time course of infection of the alphavirus Sindbis virus (SINV) was used to investigate the presence of viral specific vsRNA and the changes in miRNAs profiles in human embryonic kidney 293 cells (HEK293) by high throughput DNA sequencing. Deep sequencing of small RNAs early in SINV infection (4 and 6 hpi) showed low abundance (0.8%) of viral specific RNAs (vsRNAs) , with a random uniform distribution not typical of Dicer products, suggesting they arise from non-specific degradation. Sequencing showed little variation of cellular microRNAs (miRNAs) at 4 and 6 hpi compared to uninfected cells. Twelve miRNAs exhibiting some minor differential expression by sequencing, showed insignificant modulation by Northern blot analysis. Overall design: RNA was isolated from mock infected and SINV inoculated HEK 293 cells at 4hpi and 6hpi cDNA libraries were generated for the small RNA (sRNA) content of the cells and sequenced using Illumina GA II, which yielded between 29.1M and 30.5M reads per sample

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Donaszi-Ivanov A, Mohorianu I, Dalmay T, Powell PP