Acta Veterinaria et Zootechnica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 51 ›› Issue (8): 1956-1969.doi: 10.11843/j.issn.0366-6964.2020.08.020

• PREVENTIVE VETERINARY MEDICINE • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Screening and Characterization of the Host mRNA Targets for the miR-M4-5p Encoded by Marek's Disease Virus

SU Rui1,2,3, TENG Man2,3, LI Huizhen1,2,3, ZHENG Luping2,3, LIU Haoli2,3,4, LIU Jinling2,3, ZHU Zhijian2,3, LUO Jun2,3,4, ZHANG Gaiping1,2,5*   

  1. 1. College of Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou 450002, China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Animal Immunology of Ministry of Agriculture&Henan Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Immunology, Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou 450002, China;
    3. UK-China Centre of Excellence for Research on Avian Diseases, Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhengzhou 450002, China;
    4. Key Laboratory of Animal Disease and Public Safety, College of Animal Science and Technology, Henan University of Science and Technology, Luoyang 471003, China;
    5. Jiangsu Co-Innovation Center for the Prevention and Control of Important Animal Infectious Diseases and Zoonoses, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225009, China
  • Received:2020-01-17 Online:2020-08-25 Published:2020-08-19

Abstract: Marek's disease, a rapid-onset neoplastic disease in poultry caused by the serotype 1 Marek's disease virus (MDV-1), has been historically regarded as an ideal model for the research on virally-induced cancers. Previous studies have demonstrated that the deletion of the miR-M4-5p, a viral analog of cellular oncogene miR-155 encoded by MDV-1, from the viral genome significantly reduces virus pathogenicity and oncogenicity, suggesting an important regulatory role responsible for MD tumorigenesis. To further reveal the regulatory mechanism mediated by miR-M4-5p in MD biology, we used CEF total cellular RNA as the template to produce a cDNA library utilizing the hybrid-PCR, for screening the host mRNA targets for miR-M4-5p. A total of 128 candidate host genes were obtained, of which there are 73 candidate binding sites were located in the 3'-UTRs and 23 of them contain the perfect matches of miRNA:mRNA. Further experiments of the dual luciferase reporter assay (DLRA) and the quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis characterized three host genes, DPT, TMEM230 and DCLK1, as the in vivo targets for miR-M4-5p. Our work provides an important basis for further elucidating the regulatory mechanism of miR-M4-5p in MD oncogenesis.

Key words: Marek's disease virus, miRNA, host candidate target gene, oncogenesis, hybrid-PCR

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