Analyses of the transcriptome of Bombyx mori cells infected with either BmNPV or AcMNPV

Abstract Baculoviruses are insect-specific DNA viruses with a restricted host range. Two examples of such include Autographa californica nucleopolyhedrovirus (AcMNPV) and Bombyx mori nucleopolyhedrovirus (BmNPV). AcMNPV is a commercially available and widely used baculovirus prototype which can infect 39 species in 13 families. On the other hand, BmNPV is a major pathogen of silkworms which has developed high host specificity to Bombyx mori . Coincidentally, AcMNPV and BmNPV are highly homologous, but share no overlapping host range on a genomic level. In fact, these two similar viruses have extremely different infection outcomes in Bombyx mori . We hypothesized that the determination of host specificity may depend on virus-host interactions and several genes may be involved in determining host specificity. Therefore, we used next generation sequencing (NGS) to analyze transcriptome responses of hosts to these viruses. A transcriptome library was constructed, annotated, and grouped after sequence assembly. The comparison of gene expressions showed several significant differences in the gene expression profiles of BmNPV and AcMNPV, especially in cases where genes involved with immune responses were verified by RNA interference. In addition, studies have shown that small RNA plays a role in virus-host interaction, and further determines host specificity. Therefore, we screened microRNA induced by AcMNPV infection, and then combined NGS data from cellular gens to predict possible regulation networks. The manipulation of virus-host specificity can provide a breakthrough for the application of baculovirus in protein expression systems and the development of bio-control agents.