ACTA VETERINARIA ET ZOOTECHNICA SINICA ›› 2019, Vol. 50 ›› Issue (7): 1433-1440.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2019.07.012

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Role of DDX21 Gene in Newcastle Disease Virus Replication by Using CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated Gene Knockout Cells

WU Wei1, WANG Sa2, MENG Chunchun1, QIU Xusheng1, LIAO Ying1, TAN Lei1, SONG Cuiping1, LIU Weiwei1, SUN Yingjie1*, DING Chan1*   

  1. 1. Shanghai Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai 200241, China;
    2. College of Animal Sciences, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China
  • Received:2019-01-09 Online:2019-07-23 Published:2019-07-23

Abstract: The helicase family is a class of enzymes that are essential to all living organisms. The main function of the helicase family is gene unwapping. The DEAD/H-box family RNA helicase is a kind of important helicase. DEAD-box RNA helicase DDX21 has been proved that it may regulate innate immunity of host cells. Newcastle disease virus (NDV) is a kind of pathogen which is harmful to poultry industry. NDV can regulate the innate immunity of the host by various means. In order to verify how DDX21 regulates NDV replication, this study used CRISPR/Cas9 system to establish a DDX21 knockout HeLa cell line, and to verify its effect on NDV infection. Six sgRNAs were designed to construct knockout vectors for DDX21 gene and electrotransfected into HeLa cells. After drug screening and subcloning, the knockout efficiency was identified by PCR and Western blot, and the replication efficiency of NDV in wild type and DDX21 knockout cells was compared. The results showed that only one DDX21 heterozygote knockout cell line was obtained because DDX21 is critical for cell growth. Western blot results showed that the expression of DDX21 was significantly inhibited. The infection ability of NDV to knockout cells was significantly lower than that of wild type cells, indicating that DDX21 played a positive role in regulating NDV replication. The research above laid a foundation for the study of DDX21 regulating antiviral innate immunity.

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