ID: 97: Novel RNA protection strategy against influenza A virus
As a notorious pathogenic agent for humans, Influenza A virus (IAV) causes influenza diseases epidemically and pandemically, leading to the deaths of tens of millions of people during the last century. With new antigenic strains of influenza continuing to emerge, rapid generation of effective vaccines and antiviral medication remains a challenge. Therefore, novel strategies for the prevention and treatment of IAV infection are needed given the limitations of available antiviral strategies. By using in vitro transcription and replication system and also with the aid of Dicer, we generated a siRNA pool containing siRNAs targeting multiple conserved domain of IAV and we plan to evaluate the efficacy of specific siRNAs to prevent from the infection of different strains of IAV in human moDCs. The preliminary data showed that the replication of different strains of IAV in human moDCs was inhibited by the pre-transfection with these siRNAs 16 h before viral infection. And this inhibition was not solely due to the innate immune responses induced by pre-transfection with siRNAs. This study will address the potential use of novel synthesized siRNAs in limiting influenza viruses (including highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 viruses) replication in human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (moDCs) and also its adjuvant potential in vaccine development. These studies will provide more evidences for the feasibility of this novel strategy in the prevention and treatment of Influenza.