title: RNA interference targeting virion core protein ORF095 inhibits Goatpox virus replication in Vero cells.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Goatpox is an economically important disease in goat and sheep-producing areas of the world. Many vaccine strategies developed to control the disease are not yet completely successful. Hairpin expression vectors have been used to induce gene silencing in a large number of studies on viruses. However, none of these studies has been attempted to study GTPV. In the interest of exploiting improved methods to control goat pox, it is participated that RNAi may provide effective protection against GTPV. In this study we show the suppression of Goatpox virus (GTPV) replication via knockdown of virion core protein using RNA interference.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four short interfering RNA (siRNA) sequences (siRNA-61, siRNA-70, siRNA-165 and siRNA-296) against a region of GTPV ORF095 were selected. Sense and antisense siRNA-encoding sequences separated by a hairpin loop sequence were designed as short hairpin RNA (shRNA) expression cassettes under the control of a human U6 promoter. ORF095 amplicon was generated using PCR, and then cloned into pEGFP-N1 vector, named as p095/EGFP. p095/EGFP and each of the siRNA expression cassettes (p61, p70, p165 and p296) were co-transfected into BHK-21 cells. Fluorescence detection, flow cytometric analysis, retro transcription PCR (RT-PCR) and real time PCR were used to check the efficiency of RNAi. The results showed that the ORF095-specific siRNA-70 effectively down-regulated the expression of ORF095. When Vero cells were transfected with shRNA expression vectors (p61/GFP, p70/GFP, p165/GFP and p296/GFP) and then infected with GTPV, GTPV-ORF095-70 was found to be the most effective inhibition site in decreasing cytopathic effect (CPE) induced by GTPV. The results presented here indicated that DNA-based siRNA could effectively inhibit the replication of GTPV (approximately 463. 5-fold reduction of viral titers) on Vero cells.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study demonstrates that vector-based shRNA methodology can effectively inhibit GTPV replication on Vero cells. Simultaneously, this work represents a strategy for controlling goatpox, potentially facilitating new experimental approaches in the analysis of both viral and cellular gene functions during of GTPV infection.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Animal virology of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Gansu, PR China.
authors.forename: Zhixun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Guohua
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Xueliang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Xinmin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.forename: Yongxi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dou
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Haixia
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Xuepeng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Cai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000998:Antiviral Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D001688:Biological Products / Q000494:pharmacology; D018151:Capripoxvirus / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D002522:Chlorocebus aethiops; D034622:RNA Interference; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000494:pharmacology; D014709:Vero Cells; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D014779:Virus Replication
chemical_list: D000998:Antiviral Agents; D001688:Biological Products; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D014764:Viral Proteins