In a new study, Chen-Yu Zhang's group at Nanjing University present an extremely novel finding that a plant microRNA, MIR2911, which is enriched in honeysuckle, directly targets influenza A viruses (IAV) including H1N1, H5N1 and H7N9. Drinking of honeysuckle soup can prevent IAV infection and reduce H5N1-induced mice death.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of 19-24 nucleotide non-coding RNAs that do not encode for proteins. MiRNAs bind to target messenger RNAs to inhibit protein translation. In previous studies, the same group has demonstrated that stable miRNAs in mammalian serum and plasma are actively secreted from tissues and cells and can serve as a novel class of biomarkers for disease and act as signaling molecules in intercellular communication. They have also reported that plant miRNAs can enter into the host blood and tissues via the route of food-intake. More importantly, once inside the host, the food-derived exogenous miRNAs can regulate host physiology by regulating host "target" genes.
Here, they report a surprising finding that MIR2911 from a Chinese herb honeysuckle can suppress IAV infection. Firstly, MIR2911 was found to be selectively retained in the boiled decoction of honeysuckle, and to be delivered into mouse plasma and lung tissue after drinking honeysuckle decoction. Then, the authors showed that MIR2911 represses various influenza viruses by targeting PB2 and NS1, two genes that are known to be required for influenza viral replication. Moreover, both synthetic MIR2911 and endogenous MIR2911 in honeysuckle decoction showed effective protection of animals from H1N1 infection, while such protection is dependent on the MIR2911-binding sites in the PB2 or NS1 genes. Last, MIR2911 is also effective to suppress the replication of influenza viruses H5N1 and H7N9, indicating a broad-spectrum anti-IAV effect of MIR2911.
This work is important for the following reasons:
The researchers of this project include Zhen Zhou1, *, Xihan Li1, *, Jinxiong Liu2, *, Lei Dong1, *, Qun Chen1, Jialing Liu1, Huihui Kong2, Qianyi Zhang2, Xian Qi3, Dongxia Hou1, Lin Zhang1, Guoquan Zhang2, Yuchen Liu1, Yujing Zhang1, Jing Li1, Jin Wang1, Xi Chen1, Hua Wang3, Junfeng Zhang1, Hualan Chen2, Ke Zen1, Chen-Yu Zhang1 of 1Jiangsu Engineering Research Center for MicroRNA Biology and Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; 2State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology, Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Harbin 150001, China; 3Jiangsu Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nanjing 210090, China.
This work was supported by grants from the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2014CB542300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81101330, 31271378 and 81250044), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Nos. BK2011013, BK2012014 and BK20130592) and the Research Special Fund for Public Welfare Industry of Health (No. 201302018).
Zhou et al.: " Honeysuckle-encoded atypical microRNA2911 directly targets influenza A viruses " Publishing on Cell Research , October 7, 2014.
Author contact:
Chen-Yu Zhang (Jiangsu Engineering Research Center for MicroRNA Biology and Biotechnology, State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Nanjing University, China)
Tel: +86 25 8368 6234; E-mail: cyzhang@nju.edu.cn
Editorial contact:
Dangsheng Li (Cell Research, Shanghai, China)
Tel: +86 21 5492 2951; E-mail: dsli@sibs.ac.cn
Cell Research