Small Non-coding RNA Expression Following Respiratory Syncytial Virus or Measles Virus Infection of Neuronal Cells

Abhijeet A Bakre; Catherine Duffy; Hani'ah Abdullah; S Louise Cosby; Ralph A Tripp

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2021.671852

Small Non-coding RNA Expression Following Respiratory Syncytial Virus or Measles Virus Infection of Neuronal Cells

Front Microbiol. 2021 Sep 3:12:671852. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.671852. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Abhijeet A Bakre¹, Catherine Duffy², Hani'ah Abdullah³, S Louise Cosby^{2

3}, Ralph A Tripp¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Infectious Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States.
² Virology Branch, Veterinary Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Belfast, United Kingdom.
³ Wellcome Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom.

Abstract

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) or measles virus (MeV) infection modifies host responses through small non-coding RNA (sncRNA) expression. We show that RSV or MeV infection of neuronal cells induces sncRNAs including various microRNAs and transfer RNA fragments (tRFs). We show that these tRFs originate from select tRNAs (GCC and CAC for glycine, CTT and AAC for Valine, and CCC and TTT for Lysine). Some of the tRNAs are rarely used by RSV or MeV as indicated by relative synonymous codon usage indices suggesting selective cleavage of the tRNAs occurs in infected neuronal cells. The data implies that differentially expressed sncRNAs may regulate host gene expression via multiple mechanisms in neuronal cells.

Keywords: measles virus; microRNAs; neuronal cells; piwi-associated RNAs; respiratory syncytial virus; transfer RNAs.