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Research Project: Intervention Strategies to Support the Global Control and Eradication of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus (FMDV)

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Title: The roles of picornavirus untranslated regions in infection and innate immunity

Author
item KLOC, ANNA - Oak Ridge Institute For Science And Education (ORISE)
item RAI, DEVENDRA - University Of Minnesota
item Rieder, Aida - Elizabeth

Submitted to: Frontiers in Microbiology
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/28/2018
Publication Date: 3/20/2018
Citation: Kloc, A., Rai, D.K., Rieder, A.E. 2018. The roles of picornavirus untranslated regions in infection and innate immunity. Frontiers in Microbiology. 20(9):485. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00485.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2018.00485

Interpretive Summary: Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) as other RNA viruses could rapidly adapt to different environmental conditions. The FMDV genome contains coding regions (those encoding viral proteins) and non-coding regions (usually containing various signals to regulate gene expression and virus replication). In this review, we discuss important evidences of viral noncoding genomic elements, or specific sequences or structures association with the ability of these viruses to escape the animal natural immune system and contributing to the establishment of long term (persistent) infections. This work is important in order to better understand how viruses like FMDV affect their host and be useful information to develop better prevention tools.

Technical Abstract: Viral genomes have evolved to maximize their potential of overcoming host defense mechanisms and to induce a variety of disease syndromes. Structurally, a genome of a virus consists of coding and noncoding regions, and both have been shown to contribute to initiation and progression of disease. Accumulated work in picornaviruses has stressed out the importance of the noncoding RNAs, or untranslated 5’ and 3’ regions (UTRs), in both replication and translation of viral genomes. Unsurprisingly, defects in these processes have been reported to cause viral attenuation and affect viral pathogenicity. However, substantial evidence suggests that these untranslated RNAs may influence the outcome of the host innate immune response. This review discusses the involvement of 5’ and 3’ terminus UTRs in induction and regulation of host immunity and its consequences for viral life cycle and virulence. Although we primarily focus on picornavirus noncoding regions, parallels are also drawn to other RNA viruses.