Figure 4

Primary retinal cell-specific ZIKV infection transcriptome signature. (A) Venn diagram comparing differentially expressed genes due to ZIKV infection of human primary RPE cells at 48 and 96 hrs and human neural progenitors cells (hNPC), (B) Pathways down-regulated due to ZIKV infection in RPE cells, (C) Pathways up-regulated due to ZIKV infection in RPE cells and key regulators that are activated (D) and inhibited (E) by ZIKV infection in RPE cells. The significance of effect on pathways was calculated using the Fisher exact test and shown as −log (P value) along the x-axis. The activated and inhibited key regulators are shown with orange and blue colors respectively. (F) Validation of key regulators altered by ZIKV infection in primary RPE cells. Uninfected control and ZIKV-infected human primary RPE cells were subjected to qRT-PCR analysis. Graphs represent the statistical analyses of relative mRNA levels after normalization to β-actin levels. Data shown here are mean ± SEM (standard error of the mean) from three independent experiments. *P < 0.09, **P < 0.05, and ***P < 0.01.