Transcriptome profiling of influenza A virus-nfected lung epithelial (A549) cells with lariciresinol-4-β-D-glucopyranoside treatment

The influenza A virus is an acute contagious pathogen that affects the human respiratory system and can cause severe lung disease and even death. Lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside is a lignan that is extracted from Isatis indigotica, which is a medicinal herb plant that was commonly applied to treat infections, the common cold, fever and inflammatory diseases. Our previous study demonstrated that lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside possesses anti-viral and anti-inflammatory properties. However, the comprehensive and detailed mechanisms that underlie the effect of lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside interventions against influenza virus infection remain to be elucidated. In this study, we employed high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) to investigate the transcriptomic responses of influenza A virus-infected lung epithelial (A549) cells with lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside treatment. The transcriptome data show that infection with influenza A virus prompted the activation of 368 genes involved in RIG-I signalling, the inflammatory response, interferon a/beta signalling and gene expression that was not affected by lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside treatment. Lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside exerted its pharmacological actions on the immune system, signal transduction, cell cycle and metabolism, which may be an underlying defense mechanism against influenza virus infection. In addition, 166 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were uniquely expressed in lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside-treated cells, which were concentrated in the cell cycle, DNA repair, chromatin organization, gene expression and biosynthesis domains. Among them, six telomere-associated genes were up-regulated by lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside treatment, which have been implicated in telomere regulation and stability. Collectively, we employed RNAseq analysis to provide comprehensive insight into the mechanism of lariciresino1-4-beta-D-glucopyranoside against influenza virus infection.