Host miRNAs are known as important regulators of virus replication and pathogenesis. They can interact with various viruses through several possible mechanisms including direct binding of viral RNA. Identification of human miRNAs involved in coronavirus-host interplay becomes important due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In this article we performed computational prediction of high-confidence direct interactions between miRNAs and seven human coronavirus RNAs. As a result, we identified six miRNAs (miR-21-3p, miR-195-5p, miR-16-5p, miR-3065-5p, miR-424-5p and miR-421) with high binding probability across all analyzed viruses. Further bioinformatic analysis of binding sites revealed high conservativity of miRNA binding regions within RNAs of human coronaviruses and their strains. In order to discover the entire miRNA-virus interplay we further analyzed lungs miRNome of SARS-CoV infected mice using publicly available miRNA sequencing data. We found that miRNA miR-21-3p has the largest probability of binding the human coronavirus RNAs and being dramatically up-regulated in mouse lungs during infection induced by SARS-CoV.

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细胞 miRNA 在冠状病毒-宿主相互作用中的潜在作用

宿主 miRNA 被认为是病毒复制和发病机制的重要调节因子。它们可以通过几种可能的机制与各种病毒相互作用，包括直接结合病毒RNA。由于持续的 COVID-19 大流行，鉴定参与冠状病毒与宿主相互作用的人类 miRNA 变得非常重要。在本文中，我们对 miRNA 和 7 种人类冠状病毒 RNA 之间的高置信度直接相互作用进行了计算预测。结果，我们确定了 6 个 miRNA（miR-21-3p、miR-195-5p、miR-16-5p、miR-3065-5p、miR-424-5p 和 miR-421）在所有分析中具有高结合概率病毒。对结合位点的进一步生物信息分析揭示了人类冠状病毒及其毒株的 RNA 内 miRNA 结合区域的高度保守性。为了发现整个 miRNA-病毒相互作用，我们使用公开的 miRNA 测序数据进一步分析了 SARS-CoV 感染小鼠的肺部 miRNome。我们发现 miRNA miR-21-3p 与人类冠状病毒 RNA 结合的可能性最大，并且在 SARS-CoV 感染期间在小鼠肺部中显着上调。