Prospective approaches to target bovine viral diarrhea virus and hepatitis C virus using miRNA-based inhibitors

Abstract

Flaviviruses are a family of positive - single stranded RNA viruses, which includes Yellow Fever viruses (YFV), Dengue viruses (DENV), Japanese encephalitis (JEV), West Nile viruses (WNV), Zika viruses (ZIKV), Bovine Viral Diarrhea virus (BVDV), and Hepatitis C virus (HCV or Hepatitis C). Majority of these viruses are mostly carried by mosquitoes and are transmitted through mosquito bites or through contaminated blood or other blood products. As of now, there are vaccines available for most of these viruses, but some are still in development and research. HCV is one of the leading cause of liver cirrhosis, chronic hepatitis C, and liver cancers when left untreated.Currently, there is no vaccine available for this virus. That is why, HCV remains a threat for public health. Due to genomic similarities between HCV and Bovine Viral Diarrhea Virus (BVDV), BVDV is widely used as a surrogate model in studies related to HCV and its therapeutics. Hence, identifying a suitable target miRNA that could bind to the nucleocapsid protein gene of BVDV to inhibit viral replication is the main objective of this study and maybe later the same miRNA can be used for inhibition of HCV. The aim of this review is to highlight the importance of miRNAs targets, the impacts of Hepatitis C, and how miRNAs are being utilized as antivirals and vaccines.