Cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus-induced differential gene expression in two silkworm strains of different susceptibility

• Transcriptomes of two silkworm strains after BmCPV infection investigated via DGE
• Total 691 and 185 differentially expressed genes were detected respectively.
• Some important differentially expressed genes were verified using qRT-PCR.
• IBP2 may be an important BmCPV resistance factor.
• The results provide important clues on the molecular mechanism of BmCPV infection.

Digital gene expression (DGE) was performed to investigate the gene expression profiles of 4008 and p50 silkworm strains at 48 h after oral infection with BmCPV. 3,668,437 clean tags were identified in the BmCPV-infected p50 silkworms and 3,540,790 clean tags in the control p50. By contrast, 4,498,263 clean tags were identified in the BmCPV-infected 4008 silkworms and 4,164,250 clean tags in the control 4008. A total of 691 differentially expressed genes were detected in the infected 4008 DGE library and 185 were detected in the infected p50 DGE library, respectively. The expression profiles identified some important differentially expressed genes involved in signal transduction, enzyme activity and apoptotic changes, some of which were verified using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). These results provide important clues on the molecular mechanism of BmCPV invasion and resistance mechanism of silkworms against BmCPV infection.