Global analysis of differential expressed genes in ECV304 Endothelial-like cells infected with human cytomegalovirus

Background: Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a virus which has the potential to alter cellular gene expression through multiple mechanisms. Objective: With the application of DNA microarrays, we could monitor the effects of pathogens on host-cell gene expression programmes in great depth and on a broad scale. Methods: Changes in mRNA expression levels of human endothelial-like ECV304 cells following infection with human cytomegalovirus AD169 strain was analyzed by a microarray system comprising 21073 60-mer oligonucleotide probes which represent 18716 human genes or transcripts. Results: The results from cDNA microarray showed that there were 559 differential expressed genes consisted of 471 upregulated genes and 88 down-regulated genes. Real-time qPCR was performed to validate the expression of 6 selected genes (RPS24, MGC8721, SLC27A3, MST4, TRAF2 and LRRC28), and the results of which were consistent with those from the microarray. Among 237 biology processes, 39 biology processes were found to be related significantly to HCMV-infection. The signal transduction is the most significant biological process with the lowest p value (p=0.005) among all biological process which involved in response to HCMV infection. Conclusion: Several of these gene products might play key roles in virus-induced pathogenesis. These findings may help to elucidate the pathogenic mechanisms of HCMV caused diseases