Re-Analysis of GSE245916 Human Primary Lung Microvascular Endothelial Cells Infected with SEOV

Abstract

The original study investigated the host response to Seoul orthohantavirus (SEOV), a ratborne pathogen that is usually asymptomatic in its natural reservoir but can cause severe haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in humans, focusing on how endothelial cells in the lung and kidney microvasculature respond to infection. We reanalysed the publicly available RNAseq dataset GSE245916 to uncover regulatory mechanisms that may underlie the speciesspecific disease outcomes and to generate a robust infection signature that could guide therapeutic discovery. Our workflow extracted raw counts and metadata from ARCHS4, constructed an AnnData object, filtered for proteincoding genes, and labelled samples as control or infected. Dimensionality reduction with PCA and differential expression using limmavoom produced up and downregulated gene lists, which were then subjected to Enrichr enrichment against GO, KEGG, ChEA, and KOMP2 libraries; the signature was further queried in PerturbSeqr for drug and gene perturbations that recapitulate or reverse the expression pattern. The analysis revealed a pronounced interferondriven antiviral program characterised by IRF1/IRF8 targets and typeI IFN signalling, together with a coordinated suppression of ribosomal biogenesis and translation, while perturbation signatures highlighted proliferative regulators such as MYC and WNT11, suggesting an endothelial attempt at repair alongside antiviral defence. These findings reinforce the central role of interferon signalling in SEOVinduced endothelial dysfunction and point to potential therapeutic targets for mitigating HFRS.