Transcriptional Profiling of Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Stimulated by PPE57 Identifies Characteristic Genes Associated With Type I Interferon Signaling.

Proline-glutamic acid (PE)- and proline-proline-glutamic acid (PPE)-containing proteins are exclusive to (), the leading cause of tuberculosis (TB). In this study, we performed global transcriptome sequencing (RNA-Seq) on PPE57-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and control samples to quantitatively measure the expression level of key transcripts of interest. A total of 1367 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were observed in response to a 6 h exposure to PPE57, with 685 being up-regulated and 682 down-regulated. Immune-related gene functions and pathways associated with these genes were evaluated, revealing that the type I IFN signaling pathway was the most significantly enriched pathway in our RNA-seq dataset, with 14 DEGs identified therein including , and . These PPE57-related transcriptomic profiles have implications for a better understanding of host global immune mechanisms underlying infection outcomes. However, more studies regarding these DEGs and type I IFN signaling in this infectious context are necessary to more fully clarify the underlying mechanisms that arise in response to PPE57 during infection.