Identification and Functional Analysis of Novel Long Intergenic RNA in Chicken Macrophages Infected with Avian Pathogenic Escherichia coli

Abstract

Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC), a widespread bacterium, results in serious economic losses to the poultry industry annually, and it poses a threat to human health due to the contaminated retail poultry meat and eggs. Recently, it has been demonstrated that long non-coding RNAs played important roles in regulating gene expression and the animal immune response. This study aimed to systematically explore the function of the novel long intergenic non-coding transcript, lincRNA-73240, upon APEC infection. A bioinformatics analysis indicated that lincRNA-73240 had no coding ability and a relative stable secondary structure with multiple hairpin rings. Moreover, the RT-qPCR results showed that lincRNA-73240 was highly expressed in lungs, heart, liver, spleen, cecum tonsils, thymus, ileum, bursa of Fabricius, harderian gland, and muscles in comparison to the cerebrum. Additionally, overexpression of lincRNA-73240 can promote the expression levels of inflammation, apoptosis, autophagy, and oxidative stress-related genes, as well as the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA), and nitric oxide (NO) upon APEC infection, which lead to cellular injury and apoptosis. These findings collectively establish a foundation for the study of the biological function of chicken lincRNA-73240 and provide a theoretical basis for further research on the molecular mechanisms of the chicken immune response.