[P007] Poster

12:10 PM - 1:00 PM JST(3:10 AM - 4:00 AM UTC)

[P04-605] Imbalanced Interferon Signaling Characterizes Host Response to Cryptosporidium parvum Infection

○Soon-Il Yun¹, Misgana Mengistu Asmare¹ (1. Jeonbuk National University (Korea))

Keywords:

Cryptosporidium Parvum,Type I interferon,IFN-γ,Immune response,Transcriptomic

Cryptosporidium parvum infects intestinal epithelial cells and induces innate immune responsesthat influence parasite persistence [1]. However, the balance between type I and type II interferon signaling during infection remains incompletely defined [2]. We reanalyzed a public RNA-seq dataset of infected and control intestinal epithelial samples. Differential expression was computed using DESeq2, followed by gene set enrichment analysis with MSigDB Hallmark pathways. We developed a compact interferon imbalance index based on curated ISG and IFN-γ–responsive gene panels. Infection induced significant upregulation of interferon-stimulated genes and enrichment of the HALLMARK_INTERFERON_ALPHA_RESPONSE pathway [4]. In contrast, IFN-γ–associated transcriptional signatures showed comparatively weaker enrichment. The derived interferon imbalance index was significantly elevated in infected samples (p < 0.01), indicating dominant type I interferon activation relative to type II signaling. Transcriptomic reanalysis reveals a reproducible type I interferon–dominant host response during C. parvum infection. The proposed imbalance index provides a compact framework for mechanistic studies and biomarker development in cryptosporidiosis.