MicroRNA miR-214 Inhibits Snakehead Vesiculovirus Replication by Promoting IFN-α Expression via Targeting Host Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate-Activated Protein Kinase

Chi Zhang; Shuangshuang Feng; Wenting Zhang; Nan Chen; Abeer M Hegazy; Wenjie Chen; Xueqin Liu; Lijuan Zhao; Jun Li; Li Lin; Jiagang Tu

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2017.01775

MicroRNA miR-214 Inhibits Snakehead Vesiculovirus Replication by Promoting IFN-α Expression via Targeting Host Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate-Activated Protein Kinase

Front Immunol. 2017 Dec 11:8:1775. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2017.01775. eCollection 2017.

Authors

Chi Zhang^{1

2}, Shuangshuang Feng¹, Wenting Zhang³, Nan Chen¹, Abeer M Hegazy^{1

4}, Wenjie Chen², Xueqin Liu¹, Lijuan Zhao², Jun Li^{2

5

6}, Li Lin^{1

2

6}, Jiagang Tu^{1

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Aquatic Animal Medicine, College of Fisheries, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.
² Guangzhou Key Laboratory of Aquatic Animal Diseases and Waterfowl Breeding, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Waterfowl Healthy Breeding, College of Animal Sciences and Technology, Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Guangzhou, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Prevention and Control Agents for Animal Bacteriosis, Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary, Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan, China.
⁴ Central Laboratory for Environmental Quality Monitoring (CLEQM), National Water Research Center (NWRC), Cairo, Egypt.
⁵ School of Biological Sciences, Lake Superior State University, Sault Ste. Marie, MI, United States.
⁶ Laboratory for Marine Fisheries Science and Food Production Processes, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.
⁷ Hubei Engineering Technology Research Center for Aquatic Animal Diseases Control and Prevention, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China.

Abstract

Background: Snakehead vesiculovirus (SHVV), a new rhabdovirus isolated from diseased hybrid snakehead, has emerged as an important pathogen during the past few years in China with great economical losses in snakehead fish cultures. However, little is known about the mechanism of its pathogenicity. MicroRNAs are small noncoding RNAs that posttranscriptionally modulate gene expression and have been indicated to regulate almost all cellular processes. Our previous study has revealed that miR-214 was downregulated upon SHVV infection.

Results: The overexpression of miR-214 in striped snakehead (SSN-1) cells inhibited SHVV replication and promoted IFN-α expression, while miR-214 inhibitor facilitated SHVV replication and reduced IFN-α expression. These findings suggested that miR-214 negatively regulated SHVV replication probably through positively regulating IFN-α expression. Further investigation revealed that adenosine 5'-monophosphate-activated protein kinase (AMPK) was a target gene of miR-214. Knockdown of AMPK by siRNA inhibited SHVV replication and promoted IFN-α expression, suggesting that cellular AMPK positively regulated SHVV replication and negatively regulated IFN-α expression. Moreover, we found that siAMPK-mediated inhibition of SHVV replication could be partially restored by miR-214 inhibitor, indicating that miR-214 inhibited SHVV replication at least partially via targeting AMPK.

Conclusion: The findings of this study complemented our early study, and provide insights for the mechanism of SHVV pathogenicity. SHVV infection downregulated miR-214, and in turn, the downregulated miR-214 increased the expression of its target gene AMPK, which promoted SHVV replication via reducing IFN-α expression. It can therefore assume that cellular circumstance with low level of miR-214 is beneficial for SHVV replication and that SHVV evades host antiviral innate immunity through decreasing IFN-α expression via regulating cellular miR-214 expression.

Keywords: adenosine 5′-monophosphate-activated protein kinase; interferon; miR-214; microRNA; replication; snakehead vesiculovirus.