Dysregulation of Long Non-coding RNA (lncRNA) Genes and Predicted lncRNA-Protein Interactions during Zika Virus Infection

Arunachalam Ramaiah; Deisy Contreras; Vineela Gangalapudi; Masumi Sameer Padhye; Jie Tang; Vaithilingaraja Arumugaswami

Previous studies have provided an unbiased finding of non-coding transcripts across many cell types and tissues [11, 12] and made the conclusion that a vast majority of the genome was transcribed [13] . Interestingly, lncRNAs are playing a critical role in the developmental processes and etiology of a wide range of diseases. The expression patterns of many lncRNAs . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license is made available under a The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder. are associated with numerous key cellular processes, such as embryonic stem cell pluripotency, immune response, regulation of the cell cycle, and diseases such as cancer [9, [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] . However, the function of the majority of lncRNAs remains unknown [10] . Even though lncRNAs exert a spectrum of regulatory mechanisms across different cellular pathways, a broad theme is emerging in which lncRNAs are driving the assembly of RNA-protein complexes that can facilitate the regulation of gene expression. Knowing that there is an interaction between lncRNAs and protein coding genes in both normal and disease states is essential to uncover the key functional roles of lncRNAs in cellular and developmental processes [18, 19] . Thus, we carried out transcriptome analysis to determine expression patterns of lncRNAs in the ZIKV infected Vero cells that serve as a mammalian cell model. This study provides new insight into the interaction between ZIKV and its host.