Temporal changes in transcriptome profle provide insights of White Spot Syndrome Virus infection in Litopenaeus vannamei

Abstract

Shrimp aquaculture is severely afected by WSSV. Despite an increasing efort to understand host/virus interaction by characterizing changes in gene expression (GE) following WSSV infection, the majority of published studies have focussed on a single time-point, providing limited insight on the development of host-pathogen interaction over the infection cycle. Using RNA-seq, we contrasted GE in gills of Litopenaeus vannamei at 1.5, 18 and 56 hours-post-infection (hpi), between WSSV-challenged and control shrimps. Time course analysis revealed 5097 diferentially expressed genes: 63 DEGs were viral genes and their expression in WSSV group either peaked at 18 hpi (and decreased at 56 hpi) or increased linearly up to 56 hpi, suggesting a difer ent role played by these genes during the course of infection. The remaining DEGs showed that WSSV altered the expression of metabolic, immune, apoptotic and cytoskeletal genes and was able to inhibit NF-κB and JAK/STAT pathways. Interestingly, GE changes were not consistent through the course of infection but were dynamic with time, suggesting the complexity of host-pathogen interaction. These data ofer novel insights into the cellular functions that are afected during the course of infection and ultimately provide a valuable resource towards our understanding of the host-pathogen dynamics and its variation with time.