Bioinformatics: Effect of Cytomegalovirus Infection on Human Immune Gene Expression

Cytomegaloviruses (CMV) cause common infections in humans with a prevalence of over 70% in adults, reaching 90% in poorer communities and developing countries. In immunecompromised and transplant recipients, CMV causes serious complications including pneumonia and ulcerative colitis. Studying the effect of CMV on human immune-inflammatory genes in immune cellular responses is critically important to explore the molecular mechanisms of viral-host interaction. The aim of this study is to explore changes in the mRNA transcripts of a panel of 84 human inflammatory genes. Ninety blood samples were collected from healthy persons used as control samples and compared with acute infection with CMV sample from bioinformatics data (previous researches). Real time-PCR array were performed to determine mRNA levels expression levels of 84 different cytokines and chemokines in control`s leukocytes concentrate. CMV infection caused upregulation (between 44.99 and 0.92 fold change) in the expression of 13 human immuneinflammatory genes (IL-1 alpha, IL10R Alpha, CXCL10, IL10, CX3CR1, CCL2, CCR5, CCR7, CXCL1, IL-1β, TNF, IFN-alpha 2, CCL5). Gene ontology analysis revealed that CMV causes high impact on four key pathways in infected cells.