title: Small RNA deep sequencing identifies microRNAs and other small noncoding RNAs from human herpesvirus 6B.
abstract: Roseolovirus, or human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6), is a ubiquitous human pathogen infecting over 95% of the population by the age of 2 years. As with other herpesviruses, reactivation of HHV-6 can present with severe complications in immunocompromised individuals. Recent studies have highlighted the importance of herpesvirus-derived microRNAs (miRNAs) in modulating both cellular and viral gene expression. An initial report which computed the likelihood of various viruses to encode miRNAs did not predict HHV-6 miRNAs. To experimentally screen for small HHV-6-encoded RNAs, we conducted large-scale sequencing of Sup-T-1 cells lytically infected with a laboratory strain of HHV-6B. This revealed an abundant, 60- to 65-nucleotide RNA of unknown function derived from the lytic origin of replication (OriLyt) that gave rise to smaller RNA species of 18 or 19 nucleotides. In addition, we identified four pre-miRNAs whose mature forms accumulated in Argonaute 2. In contrast to the case for other betaherpesviruses, HHV-6B miRNAs are expressed from direct repeat regions (DR(L) and DR(R)) located at either side of the genome. All miRNAs are conserved in the closely related HHV-6A variant, and one of them is a seed ortholog of the human miRNA miR-582-5p. Similar to alphaherpesvirus miRNAs, they are expressed in antisense orientation relative to immediate-early open reading frames (ORFs) and thus have the potential to regulate key viral genes.
authors: Architecture et Réactivité de l’ARN, Université de Strasbourg, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire du CNRS, Strasbourg, France.
authors: Lee
authors: L
authors: Tuddenham
authors: Jette S
authors: JS
authors: Jung
authors: Béatrice
authors: B
authors: Chane-Woon-Ming
authors: Lars
authors: L
authors: Dölken
authors: Sébastien
authors: S
authors: Pfeffer
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D002460:Cell Line; D017931:DNA Primers; D005455:Fluorescent Antibody Technique; D005814:Genes, Viral; D015654:Herpesvirus 6, Human / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D016013:Likelihood Functions; D035683:MicroRNAs / Q000235:genetics*; D022661:RNA, Untranslated / Q000235:genetics*; D018741:Replication Origin; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D035683:MicroRNAs; D022661:RNA, Untranslated