Systematic Genome-wide Screening and Prediction of microRNAs in EBOV during the 2014 Ebolavirus Outbreak

Abstract

Recently, several thousand people have been killed by the Ebolavirus disease (EVD) in West Africa, yet no current antiviral medications and treatments are available. Systematic investigation of ebolavirus whole genomes during the 2014 outbreak may shed light on the underlying mechanisms of EVD development. Here, using the genome-wide screening in ebolavirus genome sequences, we predicted four putative viral microRNA precursors (pre-miRNAs) and seven putative mature microRNAs (miRNAs). Combing bioinformatics analysis and prediction of the potential ebolavirus miRNA target genes, we suggest that two ebolavirus coding possible miRNAs may be silence and down-regulate the target genes NFKBIE and RIPK1, which are the central mediator of the pathways related with host cell defense mechanism. Additionally, the ebolavirus exploits the miRNAs to inhibit the NF-kB and TNF factors to evade the host defense mechanisms that limit replication by killing infected cells, or to conversely trigger apoptosis as a mechanism to increase virus spreading. This is the first study to use the genome-wide scanning to predict microRNAs in the 2014 outbreak EVD and then to apply systematic bioinformatics to analyze their target genes. We revealed a potential mechanism of miRNAs in ebolavirus infection and possible therapeutic targets for Ebola viral infection treatment.