Abstract

  In 2003, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) caused by SARS coronavirus (CoV) affected 26 countries with 8000 cases. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 was first reported in Wuhan, China in December 2019. It rapidly evolved into a pandemic disease resulting in an unprecedented health crisis. Antiviral drugs and vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and related coronaviruses are crucial to prevent any future epidemics and pandemics. RNA interference (RNAi), an RNA guided post transcriptional gene silencing mechanism, plays important role in viral defense in mammals including humans. RNAi can inhibit the virus replication and expression of viral proteins through the leverage of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Therefore, RNAi an innate viral defense mechanism distributed in human cells might be a potential antiviral approach to SARS-CoV-2.

Keywords: Antiviral; COVID-19; RNAi; SARS-CoV-2; siRNAs

References

1. Berkhout B. "RNAi-mediated antiviral immunity in mammals". Current Opinion in Virology 32 (2018): 9-14.
2. Li Y., et al. "RNA interference functions as an antiviral immunity mechanism in mammals". Science6155 (2013): 231-234.
3. Jeang KT. "RNAi in the regulation of mammalian viral infections". BMC Biology 10 (2012): 58.
4. Zamore PD., et al. "RNAi: double-stranded RNA directs the ATP-dependent cleavage of mRNA at 21 to 23 nucleotide intervals". Cell1 (2000): 25-33.
5. MacRae IJ., et al. "In vitro reconstitution of the human RISC-loading complex". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 2 (2008): 512-517.
6. Wilson RC and Doudna JA. "Molecular mechanisms of RNA interference". The Annual Review of Biophysics 42 (2013): 217-239.
7. Vijayendran D., et al. "Arthropod viruses and small RNAs". Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 2 (2013): 186-195.
8. Dave RS and Pomerantz RJ. "RNA interference: on the road to an alternate therapeutic strategy!". Reviews in Medical Virology 6 (2003): 373-385.
9. Yin JQ., et al. "siRNA agents inhibit oncogene expression and attenuate human tumor cell growth". Journal of Experimental Therapeutics and Oncology 4 (2003): 194-204.
10. Gitlin L., et al. "Short interfering RNA confers intracellular antiviral immunity in human cells". Nature 6896 (2002): 430-434.
11. Lu R., et al. "Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding". Lancet 10224 (2020): 565-574.
12. Jiang S., et al. "An emerging coronavirus causing pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan, China: calling for developing therapeutic and prophylactic strategies". Emerging Microbes and Infections 1 (2020): 275-277.
13. Shang J., et al. "Structural basis of receptor recognition by SARS-CoV-2". Nature7807 (2020): 221-224.
14. Ou X., et al. "Characterization of spike glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 on virus entry and its immune cross-reactivity with SARS-CoV". Nature Communications 1 (2020): 1620.
15. Kannan S., et al. "COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus 2019) - recent trends". European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences 4 (2020): 2006-2011.
16. Cui L., et al. "The nucleocapsid protein of coronaviruses acts as a viral suppressor of RNA silencing in mammalian cells". Journal of Virology 17 (2015): 9029-9043.
17. Ambros V. "The functions of animal microRNAs". Nature7006 (2004): 350-355.
18. Gregory RI., et al. "MicroRNA biogenesis: isolation and characterization of the microprocessor complex". Methods in Molecular Biology 342 (2006): 33-47.
19. Lee Y., et al. "The nuclear RNase III Drosha initiates microRNA processing". Nature6956 (2003): 415-419.
20. Bohnsack MT., et al. "Exportin 5 is a RanGTP-dependent dsRNA-binding protein that mediates nuclear export of pre-miRNAs". RNA 2 (2004): 185-191.
21. Kupferschmidt K. "A lethal dose of RNA". Science6147 (2013): 732-733.
22. Bernstein E., et al. "Role for a bidentate ribonuclease in the initiation step of RNA interference". Nature 6818 (2001): 363-366.
23. Lagana A., et al. "Computational design of artificial RNA molecules for gene regulation". Methods in Molecular Biology 1269 (2015): 393-412.
24. Rawlings RA., et al. "Viral RNAi suppressor reversibly binds siRNA to outcompete Dicer and RISC via multiple turnover". Journal of Molecular Biology 2 (2011): 262-276.
25. Ge Q., et al. "RNA interference of influenza virus production by directly targeting mRNA for degradation and indirectly inhibiting all viral RNA transcription". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 5 (2003): 2718-2723.
26. Kapadia SB., et al. "Interference of hepatitis C virus RNA replication by short interfering RNAs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 4 (2003): 2014-2018.
27. Bitko V., et al. "Inhibition of respiratory viruses by nasally administered siRNA". Nature Medicine 1 (2005): 50-55.
28. He ML., et al. "Inhibition of SARS-associated coronavirus infection and replication by RNA interference". The Journal of the American Medical Association20 (2003): 2665-2666.
29. Zhang R., et al. "Inhibiting severe acute respiratory syndrome-associated coronavirus by small interfering RNA". Chinese Medical Journal 8 (2003): 1262-1264.
30. Zhang Y., et al. "Silencing SARS-CoV spike protein expression in cultured cells by RNA interference”. FEBS Letters 1-3 (2004): 141-146.
31. Zhou Y., et al. "Network-based drug repurposing for novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV-2". Cell Discovery Journal 6 (2020): 14.
32. Walls AC., et al. "Structure, function and antigenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein". Cell2 (2020): 281-292.
33. Kaczmarek JC., et al. "Advances in the delivery of RNA therapeutics: from concept to clinical reality". Genome Medicine 1 (2017): 60.
34. Broering R., et al. "Chemical modifications on siRNAs avoid Toll-like-receptor-mediated activation of the hepatic immune system In vivo and In vitro". International Immunology 1 (2014): 35-46.
35. Alvarez R., et al. “RNA interference-mediated silencing of the respiratory syncytial virus nucleocapsid defines a potent antiviral strategy”. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy9 (2009): 3952-3962.

Citation

Citation: J Jasmine.,et al. “RNAi-Mediated Antiviral Approach to SARS-CoV-2". Acta Scientific Microbiology 3.7 (2020): 23-26.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 J Jasmine., 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.