Fig. 4: Distinct effects of ZIKV on temporal gene regulation in human skin cells, fibroblasts.

The fibroblast’s transcriptome was analysed at 10- and 24-h post-infection (hpi) of cells. a Bubble plot of 401 affected transcripts among different conditions. X-axis: number of transcripts with decreased (left of y-axis) and increased (right of y-axis) expression, respectively. Y-axis: range of log2 fold changes (x-axis = zero). The volume of bubbles reflects the effect of treatment. b Hierarchical clustering of affected transcripts with three visible clusters. Expression level is reflected by colour (high = red, low = blue). c Enrichment of biological processes (Gene Ontology database) among the transcripts with significantly altered expression 10 hpi (p ≥ 0.05) and 24 hpi (p ≤ 0.05), independent from control. Dotted lines represent the p values of 5 × 10^-4 (10 hpi) and 5 × 10^-5 (24 hpi) respectively, which were used for the truncation of results. d All detected transcripts (ellipses) annotated with lipoprotein metabolic process (according to Gene Ontology database) and further biological processes potentially influenced (p ≤ 5 × 10^-4) by these transcripts. Transcripts labelled green were significantly affected upon infection with ZIKV. Fill colour intensity of biological processes represents the likelihood of a process being affected by these transcripts and their fold changes as observed by RNAseq analysis (according to GO net, q ≤ 5 × 10^-4). e Expression value profile plot of transcripts shown in (d). f, g Volcano plots of expression levels observed 10 hpi (f) and 24 hpi (g) with ZIKV, compared to heat-inactivated controls. Green: genes involved in lipoprotein metabolic processes. Circled dots: transcripts already affected 10 hpi. Dotted line at x-axis: p = 0.05. Dotted line y-axis: fold change = 2.