Transcriptome analysis reveals LZ-8 triggers antiviral innate immunity in mouse T lymphocytes [RNASeq1]

Ganoderma lucidum is a traditional medicinal herb that has commonly been used for treating virus infections. Protein LZ-8 comes from Ganoderma lucidum and has immunomodulatory and antiviral activities. However, the potential molecular antiviral mechanism of LZ-8 is still unclear. In this study transcriptome analysis was used to gain a deeper insight into the antiviral effects of LZ-8 on T lymphocytes. Deseq analysis showed that 2724 genes were upregulated and 3314 genes were downregulated after LZ-8 treatment for 5 hours. GO enrichment analysis showed that the upregulated genes were significantly enriched in biological processes including defense response to virus, ribosome biosynthesis, RNA processing, etc. The downregulated genes were significantly enriched in biological processes including cell cycle, signal transduction, etc. Pathway enrichment analysis indicated that NF- κB signaling pathway was closely related to LZ-8. RT-qPCR confirmed that inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway reversed the elevated transcriptional level of antiviral genes including Ifit1, Isg15, Mx1, Ifit3, and Ifih1 in T lymphocytes triggered by LZ-8. In a word, our study demonstrated that LZ-8 triggered the antiviral innate immunity of T lymphocytes through the NF-κB signaling pathway.