Time-course transcriptome analysis of host cell response to poxvirus infection using a dual long-read sequencing approach

In this study, we applied two long-read sequencing (LRS) approaches, including single-molecule real-time and nanopore-based sequencing methods to investigate the time-lapse transcriptome patterns of host gene expression as a response to Vaccinia virus infection. Transcriptomes determined using short-read sequencing approaches are incomplete because these platforms are inefficient or fail to distinguish between polycistronic RNAs, transcript isoforms, transcriptional start sites, as well as transcriptional readthroughs and overlaps. Long-read sequencing is able to read full-length nucleic acids and can therefore be used to assemble complete transcriptome atlases. In this work, we identified a number of novel transcripts and transcript isoforms of Chlorocebus sabaeus. Additionally, analysis of the most abundant 768 host transcripts revealed a significant overrepresentation of the class of genes in the "regulation of signaling receptor activity" Gene Ontology annotation as a result of viral infection.