Alteration of gene expression in microvascular endothelial cells after exposure to foot-and-mouth disease virus 146S antigen

Authors: TAO ZHANG, SHUANG ZHANG, LI-FANG TIAN, GE HU, ZHAN-WEI SUO, WU CHEN, HUI-QIN DUAN, XIANG MU, KE-DAO TENG

Abstract: To investigate the global response of microvascular endothelial cells (MVECs) to foot-and-mouth (FMDV)disease vaccine (FMDV) antigen and to explore the role of MVECs in FMD vaccine immunity, the gene expression alterations of rat myocardium microvascular endothelial cells (RMMVECs) after stimulation with FMD virus (FMDV) 146S antigen were assayed using cDNA microarrays. We observed that 18 genes and 67 genes in RMMVECs were respectively altered by FMDV 146S antigen at 6 h and 24 h, respectively. The former were all up-regulated genes, and the latter included 60 up-regulated genes and 7 down-regulated genes. Among the differentially expressed genes, many were associated to immune response, such as the genes encoding chemokines, interleukins, complement components, and adhesion molecules. In particular, the chemokine genes had the greatest numbers and significant expression ratios. A part of the altered genes with immune function was validated by real-time reverse transcription-PCR. The influence of FMDV 146S antigen on the secretion of monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and IL-1 by RMMVECs was confirmed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the expression of vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 was identified by immunocytochemistry. The results indicated that the FMDV 146S antigen induces the changes of immune-associated genes in RMMVECs, which suggests that MVECs play an important role in modulating how the innate immune system responds to FMD vaccine.

Keywords: Microvascular endothelial cells, foot-and-mouth disease virus, 146S, microarray

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