RNA-Seq analysis of interferon inducible p204-mediated network in anti-tumor immunity

Abstract

p204, a murine member of the interferon-inducible p200 protein family, and its human analogue, IFI16, have been shown to function as tumor suppressors in vitro, but the molecular events involved, in particular in vivo, remain unclear. Herein we induced the Lewis Lung carcinoma (LLC) murine model of human lung cancer in p204 null mice (KO) and their control littermates (WT). We compared the transcriptome in spleen from WT and p204 KO mice using a high-throughput RNA-sequencing array. A total 30.02 Gb of clean data were obtained, and overall Q30% was greater than 90.54%. More than 75% of clean data from 12 transcriptome samples were mapped to exons. The results showed that only 11 genes exhibited altered expression in untreated p204 KO mice relative to untreated WT mice, while 393 altered genes were identified in tumor-bearing p204 KO mice when compared with tumor-bearing WT mice. Further differentially expressed gene cluster and gene ontology consortium classification revealed that numerous cytokines and their receptors, chemoattractant molecules, and adhesion molecules were significantly induced in p204 KO mice. This study provides novel insights to the p204 network in anti-tumor immune response and also presents a foundation for future work concerning p204-mediated gene expressions and pathways.