Comparative transcriptome profiling of human and pig intestinal epithelial cells after porcine deltacoronavirus infection

Porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) is an emerging infectious disease of swine with zoonotic potential. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that PDCoV originated recently from a host-switching event between birds and mammals. Little is known about how PDCoV interacts with its differing hosts. Human derived cell lines are susceptible to PDCoV infection. Here we compare gene expression profiles of an established host swine cells to a potential emerging host human cells after infection with PDCoV. Cell lines derived from intestinal lineages were used to reproduce the primary sites of viral infection in the host. Porcine intestinal epithelial cells (IPEC-J2) and human intestinal epithelial cells (HIEC) were infected with PDCoV. RNA-sequencing was performed on total RNA extracted from infected cells. Our findings provide an important foundation that contributes to an understanding of the mechanisms of PDCoV infection across different hosts. To our knowledge, this is the first report of transcriptome analysis of human cells infected by PDCoV.