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Review
. 2023 Aug 8;15(8):1703.
doi: 10.3390/v15081703.

Insights into the Transcriptome of Human Cytomegalovirus: A Comprehensive Review

Janine Zeng  1 , Di Cao  2 , Shaomin Yang  2 , Dabbu Kumar Jaijyan  1 , Xiaolian Liu  3 , Songbin Wu  2 , Ruth Cruz-Cosme  4 , Qiyi Tang  4 , Hua Zhu  1
Affiliations
Review

Insights into the Transcriptome of Human Cytomegalovirus: A Comprehensive Review

Janine Zeng et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that poses significant risks to immunocompromised individuals. Its genome spans over 230 kbp and potentially encodes over 200 open-reading frames. The HCMV transcriptome consists of various types of RNAs, including messenger RNAs (mRNAs), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), circular RNAs (circRNAs), and microRNAs (miRNAs), with emerging insights into their biological functions. HCMV mRNAs are involved in crucial viral processes, such as viral replication, transcription, and translation regulation, as well as immune modulation and other effects on host cells. Additionally, four lncRNAs (RNA1.2, RNA2.7, RNA4.9, and RNA5.0) have been identified in HCMV, which play important roles in lytic replication like bypassing acute antiviral responses, promoting cell movement and viral spread, and maintaining HCMV latency. CircRNAs have gained attention for their important and diverse biological functions, including association with different diseases, acting as microRNA sponges, regulating parental gene expression, and serving as translation templates. Remarkably, HCMV encodes miRNAs which play critical roles in silencing human genes and other functions. This review gives an overview of human cytomegalovirus and current research on the HCMV transcriptome during lytic and latent infection.

Keywords: HCMV; circRNA; lncRNA; mRNA; miRNA; transcriptome.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
An overview of HCMV transcriptome.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Genome organization of HCMV.
Figure 3
Figure 3
HCMV gene expression during productive infection.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Genome organization and full-length circRNAs of HCMV. The ORFs are color-coded according to the growth properties of their corresponding virus gene-deletion mutants. Variation multigene segment of the HAN strain: ~15 kb (176,729 to 191,263 bp). The relative expression levels of circRNAs are indicated by the colors at the bottom. Reconstruction of full-length circRNAs and partially assembled circRNAs are indicated by “Full” and “Break”, respectively.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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