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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Athens, Georgia » U.S. National Poultry Research Center » Endemic Poultry Viral Diseases Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #344734
Research Project: Enhancing Genetic Resistance to Marek’s Disease in Poultry

Location: Endemic Poultry Viral Diseases Research

Title: Linc-GALMD1 regulates viral gene expression in the chicken

Author
item HE, YANGHUA - University Of Maryland
item HAN, BAO - University Of Maryland
item DING, YI - University Of Maryland
item Zhang, Huanmin
item CHANG, SHUANG - Shandong Agricultural University
item ZHANG, LI - Beijing Academy Of Agricultural Sciences
item ZHAO, CHUNFANG - China Agriculture University
item YANG, NING - China Agriculture University
item SONG, JIUZHOU - South China Agricultural University

Submitted to: Frontiers in Genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/16/2019
Publication Date: 11/14/2019
Citation: He, Y., Han, B., Ding, Y., Zhang, H., Chang, S., Zhang, L., Zhao, C., Yang, N., Song, J. 2019. Linc-GALMD1 regulates viral gene expression in the chicken. Frontiers in Genetics. 10:1122. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2019.01122.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2019.01122

Interpretive Summary: Marek’s disease (MD) is a lymphoma of chickens caused by Marek’s disease virus (MDV), which costs the world poultry industry over $2 billion loss each year. Advancing the understanding on host genetic resistance to MD should be the key in knowledge-based measures to better control MD in poultry. In this study, we have identified a long non-coding RNA gene, that is, a long piece of RNA but it does not produce any protein product, which was named as linc-GALMD1. We found that this long non-coding RNA gene, linc-GALMD1, has a regulatory role in controlling MDV gene expression, thereby, suggested a role in MD tumor suppression and immune response regulation. When it is confirmed by independent studies soon, it can be very instrumental in innovating new measures to better control the disease in poultry.

Technical Abstract: A rapidly increasing number of reports on dysregulated long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) expression across numerous types of cancers indicates that aberrant lincRNA expression may be a major contributor to tumorigenesis. Marek’s disease (MD) is a T cell lymphoma of chickens induced by Marek’s disease virus (MDV). Although we have investigated the roles of lincRNAs in bursa tissue of MDV-infected chickens in previous studies, the molecular mechanisms of lincRNA functions in T cells remain poorly understood. In the present study, Linc-GALMD1 was identified from CD4+ T cells and MSB1 cells, and its expression was significantly downregulated in MD-resistant line of birds in response to MDV challenge. Furthermore, loss-of-function experiments indicated that linc-GALMD1 significantly affected the expression of 290 genes in trans. Through integrated analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) induced by MDV and linc-GALMD1, we found that IGLL1 gene expression levels had a positive correlation with the degree of MD infection and could potentially serve as an indicator for clinical diagnosis of MD. Moreover, an interaction between MDV and linc-GALMD1 was also observed. Accordingly, chicken embryonic fibroblast cells were inoculated with MDV with and without the linc-GALMD1 knockdown, and the data showed that linc-GALMD1 could repress MDV gene expression during the course of MDV infection. These findings uncovered a role of linc-GALMD1 as a viral gene regulator and suggested a function of linc-GALMD1 contributing to tumor suppression by coordinating expression of MDV genes and tumor-related genes and regulating immune responses to MDV infection.