Role of non-coding RNAs in Dengue virus-host interaction

Dengue is potentially a life-threatening arthropod-borne viral infection for which there are no known therapeutic agents till date. Early stage diagnosis of dengue infection is still lacking. Diagnosis is only made after severe manifestations and later stages of infection. Timely prognosis can prevent dengue related mortalities. The nucleic acid-based therapy has potential to emerge as a promising approach for early diagnosis and treatment of this viral infection. Many studies have been carried out suggested the regulatory role of ncRNAs thereby revealing the importance of protein-RNA and RNA-RNA interactions during infection. Various regulatory RNAs are either expressed by mammalian cells or generated by viral RNA have reported to play important roles in viral life cycle including dengue virus. Thus exploring host-virus interaction will pave the novel path for understanding the pathophysiology of febrile infection in dengue. Rapid advances in sequencing techniques along with significant developments in the field of RNA studies has made RNA therapeutics as one of the promising approaches as antiviral targets. The idea of RNA based therapies has been greatly backed by a Hepatitis C virus drug, Miravirsen which has successfully completed phase II clinical trial. In the present review, we will discuss the implications of different non-coding RNAs in dengue infection. Differential expression of small ncRNA may serve as a reliable biomarker of disease severity during different stages of infection and can also play regulatory roles in disease progression.