Viral lncRNA: A regulatory molecule for controlling virus life cycle

Wang, Ziqiang; Zhao, Yiwan; Zhang, Yaou

Viruses are important infectious agents that interfere with the molecular process of gene expression in the host cell. Therefore, an understanding of the mechanisms by which viruses adapt to the host cellular environment and enhance the expression of specific viral genes that control pathogenicity will provide basic information concerning cellular processes during viral infection. Although the majority of factors that are known to regulate the viral life cycle are proteins, a growing number of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been verified to function in these processes [1] . Historically, genes of non-coding RNAs have been regarded as "junk DNA". However, this type of long non-coding transcript has recently risen to prominence as a surprisingly versatile regulator of gene expression. The functional diversity of the mere handful of validated lncRNAs indicates the vast regulatory potential of these silent biomolecules.