Figure 9: Inhibition of autophagy with specific siRNA targeting endogenous ATG7 enhances TGEV replication.

(a) ST cells were transfected with siRNA targeting porcine endogenous ATG7 or control siRNA for 24 h, and followed by mock treatment or TGEV infection at MOI of 1. At 24 hpi, the silencing efficiency of ATG7 siRNA was analyzed. (b) Detergent lysate from equivalent numbers of ST cells transfected with ATG7-specific siRNA were subjected to immunoblotting with antibodies to ATG7 or β-actin. (c) ST cells were transfected with ATG7-specific siRNA duplexes 2# or control siRNA for 24 h followed by infection with TGEV. At 24 h post infection, TGEV infection was examined by IFA. The percentage of TGEV-infected cells per view from three independent experiments is expressed as mean ± SD. (d) Virus titers in ATG7-siRNA 2#-transfected ST cells were determined by TCID₅₀ assay. Representative data from three independent experiments are shown as the mean ± SD. *p < 0.05. The p value is calculated using Student’s t-test. Gels were run under the same experimental conditions. For better clarity and conciseness of the presentation, cropped blots are shown. The raw uncropped images can be found in the Supplementary Fig. S7.