PAKISTAN VETERINARY JOURNAL

Pak Vet J, 2026, 46(9) 2270-2281

Whole Transcriptome Profiling Reveals the ceRNA Network in Chicken T Cells with Stable CD8A Overexpression

Yanli Du¹, Wei Huang¹, Kun Wang², Xiannian Zi², Dalia Fouad³, Farid Shokry Ataya⁴, Changrong Ge², Muhammad Sarfaraz Iqbal⁵ and Jinshan Ran^1*

¹College of Agronomy and Life Sciences, Kunming University, Kunming 650200, Yunnan Province, China; ²Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed, Yunnan Agricultural University, Kunming 650201, Yunnan Province, China; ³Department of Zoology, College of Science, King Saud University, PO Box 22452, Riyadh 11495, Saudi Arabia; ⁴Department of Biochemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, PO Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia; ⁵State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dongchuan Road, Minhang District, Shanghai 200240, China.

*Corresponding author: jsran@kmu.edu.cn

Abstract

The CD8ɑ (CD8A) gene plays an important role in immune function, particularly in T cells. Our previous study demonstrated that CD8A overexpression promotes T-cell activation. Coding and non-coding RNAs are presumed to participate in CD8A‑related molecular events in chicken T cells; however, their expression patterns and underlying molecular links remain largely unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we performed whole-transcriptome RNA-seq to analyze mRNA, lncRNA, miRNA and circRNA expression profiles in chicken T cells with CD8A overexpression. The results revealed 1502 significantly differentially expressed (DE) genes, 290 DE-lncRNAs, 23 DE-circRNAs, alongside 27 DE-miRNAs. From our computationally predicted ceRNA interaction dataset, CD8A overexpression correlates with the enrichment of multiple functional pathways, including “positive regulation of cytokine production involved in inflammatory response”, “positive regulation of chemokine-mediated signaling pathway,” and “positive regulation of hormone biosynthetic process”, which may potentially contribute to chicken T-cell activation. Additionally, 7 genes were significantly enriched in the GO terms and KEGG pathways, like HIF1A, KPNA6, AKT3, INPP5K, TASOR, IL20 and AQR. They were immune genes regulated by miR-212-5p, miR-153-5p_L+1, miR-11987L_1+1_1ss8TA, miR-30a-3p, miR-130-3p and PC-3p-865_3810. The above-mentioned miRNAs showed competitive combinations with additional lncRNAs, such as MSTRG.3834.4, MSTRG.7401.2, MSTRG.2136.8, MSTRG.8713.1, MSTRG.2549.18, MSTRG.7401.2, MSTRG.7401.3 and MSTRG.7882.7 etc., through circRNAs such as cirRNA3035 and cirRNA3926. Consequently, CD8A is associated with T-cell activation and immune responses in chickens, which may be linked to the computationally predicted ceRNA interactions and related pathways.

To Cite This Article: Du Y, Huang W, Wang K, Zi X, Fouad D, Ataya FS, Ge C, IqbalMS and Ran J, 2026. Whole transcriptome profiling reveals the ceRNA network in chicken T cells with stable CD8A overexpression. Pak Vet J, 46(9): 2270-2281. http://dx.doi.org/10.29261/pakvetj/2026.221

Abstract

ISSN 0253-8318 (Print)ISSN 2074-7764 (Online)

ISSN 0253-8318 (Print)
ISSN 2074-7764 (Online)