The University of Texas at Austin, Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Austin, Texas, USA.
J Virol. 2013 Oct;87(20):11135-47. doi: 10.1128/JVI.01711-13. Epub 2013 Aug 7.
Hundreds of virus-encoded microRNAs (miRNAs) have been uncovered, but an in-depth functional understanding is lacking for most. A major challenge for the field is separating those miRNA targets that are biologically relevant from those that are not advantageous to the virus. Here, we show that miRNAs from related variants of the polyomavirus simian vacuolating virus 40 (SV40) have differing host target repertoires (targetomes) while their direct autoregulatory activity on virus-encoded early gene products is completely preserved. These results underscore the importance of miRNA-mediated viral gene autoregulation in some polyomavirus life cycles. More broadly, these findings imply that some host targets of virus-encoded miRNAs are likely to be of little selective advantage to the virus, and our approach provides a strategy for prioritizing relevant targets.
已发现数百种病毒编码的 microRNAs（miRNAs），但大多数 miRNA 的功能仍不清楚。该领域的主要挑战是将那些对病毒具有生物学意义的 miRNA 靶标与那些对病毒没有优势的靶标区分开来。在这里，我们表明，相关的多瘤病毒猿猴空泡病毒 40（SV40）变体的 miRNA 具有不同的宿主靶标谱（靶标组），而它们对病毒编码的早期基因产物的直接自动调节活性则完全保留。这些结果强调了 miRNA 介导的病毒基因自动调节在某些多瘤病毒生命周期中的重要性。更广泛地说，这些发现表明，病毒编码的 miRNA 的一些宿主靶标可能对病毒几乎没有选择优势，我们的方法为确定相关靶标提供了一种策略。
