Exploiting functional regions in the viral RNA genome as druggable entities.

Publication date: Jul 02, 2025

RNA-targeting compounds or small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) offer a potent means to control viral infections. An essential prerequisite for their design depends on identifying conserved and functional viral RNA structures in cells. Techniques that probe RNA structures in situ have recently been developed including SHAPE-MaP, which has been helpful in the analysis of secondary structures of RNA. In this study, we report on the application of SHAPE-MaP to the porcine epidemic diarrhea virus RNA genome to categorize different functional regions, including potential quadruplex-forming sequence and target sites of siRNA. Our results show that these structures can be exploited to inhibit viral proliferation and that SHAPE-MaP is an effective method to identify secondary structures in RNA genomes.

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Concepts Keywords
Diarrhea Animals
Druggable Antiviral Agents
Genomes Antiviral Agents
Prerequisite biochemistry
Viral chemical biology
Genome, Viral
Nucleic Acid Conformation
RNA
RNA, Small Interfering
RNA, Small Interfering
RNA, Viral
RNA, Viral
SHAPE-MaP
siRNA
Swine

Semantics

Type Source Name
disease MESH viral infections
disease IDO nucleic acid

Original Article

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