Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2024, Vol. 55 ›› Issue (3): 1238-1248.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2024.03.035

• BASIC VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effect of ACE2 on Porcine Intestinal Epithelial Cells Infected with Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus in vitro

REN Lixin1, ZHANG Jingyi1, XU Shasha1, YANG Liu2, ZHANG Xingcui1*, SONG Zhenhui1,3*   

  1. 1. College of Veterinary Medicine, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China;
    2. Chongqing Academy of Animal Husbandry, Chongqing 402460, China;
    3. Immunology Research Center, Institute of Medical Research, Southwest University, Chongqing 402460, China
  • Received:2023-04-13 Online:2024-03-23 Published:2024-03-27

Abstract: The present study aimed to investigate the role of angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in the infection of piglets with porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV). We investigated the expression of ACE2 before and after PEDV infection in piglets by transcriptomic analysis. Then the changes of ACE2 expression before and after PEDV infection were verified by using Porcine Intestinal Epithelial Cells (IPEC-J2) model. The changes of ACE2 mRNA and protein expression levels after PEDV infection in IPEC-J2 were detected by RT-qPCR and Western blot. And the PEDV replication levels were detected by RT-qPCR, Western blot, and TCID50 after overexpression and inhibition of ACE2 expression. The results showed that the mRNA and protein expression levels of ACE2 were significantly downregulated after PEDV infection with IPEC-J2, which was consistent with the transcriptomic results. PEDV infection significantly increased in the ACE2 overexpression group and significantly decreased in the PEDV infection in the ACE2 suppression group. This study validated the role of ACE2 in the process of PEDV infection at the cellular level. PEDV infection was able to decrease ACE2 expression, overexpression of ACE2 in IPEC-J2 cells increased PEDV replication levels, and inhibition of ACE2 expression decreased PEDV replication levels.

Key words: angiotensin converting enzyme 2, ACE2, porcine epidemic diarrhea virus, IPEC-J2

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