2026-04-13T14:22:43Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/requestoai:recercat.cat:20.500.12327/822025-10-22T11:17:28Zcom_2072_4428com_2072_4427col_2072_487898
RECERCAT
author
Núñez-Hernández, Fernando
author
Vera, Gonzalo
author
Sánchez, Armand
author
Rodríguez, Fernando
author
Núñez, José I.
other
Producció Animal
group
Sanitat Animal
2025-10-22T11:17:28Z
2025-10-22T11:17:28Z
2018-09-03
Núñez-Hernández, F., Vera, G., Sánchez, A., Rodríguez, F., & Núñez, J. (2018). African swine fever virus does not express viral microRNAs in experimentally infected pigs. BMC Veterinary Research, 14(1). doi:10.1186/s12917-018-1601-2
0928-4249
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12327/82
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-018-1601-2
Background: African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the etiological agent of African swine fever (ASF), a re-expanding
devastating and highly lethal hemorrhagic viral disease. microRNAs (miRNAs) are a new class of small non-coding
RNAs that regulate gene expression post-transcriptionally. The discovery of virus specific miRNAs has increased both
in number and importance in the past few years. We have recently described the differential expression of several
porcine miRNAs during in vivo infection with attenuated and virulent ASFV strains. Here, we have extended these
studies trying to identify the presence of viral miRNAs encoded by ASFV in an in vivo infection in pigs.
Results: Sixteen small RNA libraries were analyzed from spleen and submandibular lymph nodes obtained from
eight pigs, seven infected with either the virulent E75 ASFV strain or its attenuated counterpart E75CV1, or from
pigs surviving E75CV1-infection and challenged with BA71 (heterologous challenge) and one non infected as
negative control. Samples were recovered at different times post-infection. Libraries were analyzed by nextgeneration sequencing. Some viral miRNA candidates were initially identified, which did not correspond to porcine
miRNAs. Further structural analyses were carried out in order to confirm if they met the conformational
requirements to be considered a viral miRNA.
Conclusions: The analysis of sixteen small RNA libraries prepared from two different tissues obtained from pigs
experimentally infected with E75, E75CV1 or with E75CV1 plus BA71, revealed the presence of six potential miRNA
sequences but none of them met the requirements to be considered as viral miRNAs. Thus, we can conclude that
ASFV does not express miRNAs in vivo, at least under the experimental conditions described here.
Keywords: African swine fever virus, microRNA, Viral miRNA
eng
Attribution 4.0 International
African swine fever virus does not express viral microRNAs in experimentally infected pigs
info:eu-repo/semantics/article