Viral lncRNA: A regulatory molecule for controlling virus life cycle

Wang, Ziqiang; Zhao, Yiwan; Zhang, Yaou

As part of the viral life cycle, the genome packaging and virion release processes are initiated by tethering of viral proteins by the viral genome into new infective progeny viruses within the infected cell. In moloney murine leukemia virus (MLV)-infected cells, the mY1 and mY3 RNAs, which are non-coding RNA polymerase III transcripts that are normally complexed with the Ro60 and La proteins in host cells, are selected for encapsidation and assist with viral RNA biogenesis and quality control [23] . Additionally, sfRNA has been shown to be essential for ensuring specific genome packaging in many flaviviruses. For instance, in WNV KUN-infected cells, the plaque size and virus growth in mammalian and mosquito cells correlated with the generation and amount of full-length sfRNA, showing that the production of abundant amounts of fulllength sfRNA was essential for efficient viral packaging and virion release [2] . Furthermore, in Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV)infected cells, sfRNA promote the packaging and release of virions for the next infectious cycle by shutting down both antigenome synthesis and JEV translation [21] . In our study, we found that the herpes simplex virus-1 (HSV-1) glycoprotein density and intensity were much lower in NEAT1-knockdown HeLa cells than in the control cells, suggesting that NEAT1 influenced HSV-1 virion release [18] .