Roles of microRNAs in the life cycles of mammalian viruses

Abstract

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of small noncoding RNAs expressed by plants, animals, and some viruses. miRNAs generally function as part of miRNA-induced silencing complexes to modestly repress mRNAs with imperfect sequence complementarity. Over the last years, many different roles of miRNA mediated regulation in the life cycles of mammalian viruses have been uncovered. In this chapter, I will mainly explore four different examples of how cellular miRNAs interact with viruses: the role of miR-155 in viral oncogenesis, viral strategies to eliminate cellular miR-27, the contribution of miR-122 to the replication of hepatitis C virus, and miRNAs as an experimental tool to control virus replication and vector transgene expression. In the final part of this chapter, I will give a brief overview of virally encoded microRNAs.