Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) is a significant pathogen affecting swine, causing severe economic losses worldwide. This study explores the regulatory role of miRNA-328-3p to ZO-1 expression and its impact on PEDV proliferation via the PLC-β1-PKC pathway in IPEC-J2 cells. We found that miRNA-328-3p can target ZO-1, influencing its expression and subsequently affecting the integrity of tight junctions in the cells. Overexpression of PLC-β1, combined with miRNA-328-3p silencing, enhanced ZO-1 expression, while PLC-β1 knockdown combined with miRNA-328-3p overexpression inhibited ZO-1 expression. Furthermore, PLC-β1 overexpression increased both viral genome expression and PEDV titers, whereas its silencing had the opposite effect. Notably, our data indicated a negative correlation between PLC-β1 and PKC expression, and PKC silencing attenuated the upregulatory effect of PLC-β1 on ZO-1. These findings suggest that PLC-β1 modulates ZO-1 expression through the PKC pathway, providing new insights into the molecular mechanisms of PEDV infection and potential therapeutic targets.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.