Characterization of Viral miRNAs during Adenovirus 14 Infection and Their Differential Expression in the Emergent Strain Adenovirus 14p1

Human adenoviruses (HAdV) express either one or two virus-associated RNAs (VA RNAI or VA RNAII). The structure of VA RNA resembles human precursor microRNAs (pre-miRNA), and, like human pre-miRNA, VA RNA can be processed by DICER into small RNAs that resemble human miRNA. VA RNA-derived miRNA (mivaRNA) can mimic human miRNA post-transcriptional gene repression by binding to complementary sequences in the 3' UTR of host mRNA. HAdV14 is a member of the B2 subspecies of species B adenovirus, and the emergent strain HAdV14p1 is associated with severe respiratory illness that can lead to acute respiratory distress syndrome. Utilizing small RNA sequencing, we identified four main mivaRNAs generated from the HAdV14/p1 VA RNA gene, two from each of the 5' and 3' regions of the terminal stem. There were temporal expression changes in the abundance of 5' and 3' mivaRNAs, with 3' mivaRNAs more highly expressed early in infection and 5' mivaRNAs more highly expressed later in infection. In addition, there are differences in expression between the emergent and reference strains, with HAdV14 expressing more mivaRNAs early during infection and HAdV14p1 having higher expression later during infection. HAdV14/p1 mivaRNAs were also shown to repress gene expression in a luciferase gene reporter system. Our results raise the question as to whether differential expression of mivaRNAs during HAdV14p1 infection could play a role in the increased pathogenesis associated with the emergent strain.