JVI Accepts, published online ahead of print on 4 November 2009

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J. Virol. doi:10.1128/JVI.01712-09
Copyright (c) 2009, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

Identification of viral microRNAs expressed in human sacral ganglia latently infected with herpes simplex virus 2

Jennifer L. Umbach, Kening Wang, Shuang Tang, Philip R. Krause, Erik K. Mont, Jeffrey I. Cohen, and Bryan R. Cullen^*

Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology and Center for Virology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710; Medical Virology Section, Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892; Division of Viral Products, Office of Vaccines Research and Review, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration, Bethesda, MD 20892; Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner Department, Miami, FL 33136

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: bryan.cullen{at}duke.edu.

Deep sequencing of small RNAs isolated from human sacral ganglia latently infected with herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) was used to identify HSV-2 microRNAs (miRNAs) expressed during latent infection. This effort resulted in the identification of five distinct HSV-2 miRNA species, two of which, miR-H3/miR-I and miR-4/miR-II, have been previously reported. Three novel HSV-2 miRNAs were also identified, two of which, miR-H7 and miR-H9, are derived from the latency-associated transcript (LAT) and are located antisense to the viral transcript encoding transactivator ICP0. A third novel HSV-2 miRNA, miR-H10, is encoded within the U_L region of the genome, 3' to the U_L15 open reading frame, and is presumably excised from a novel, latent HSV-2 transcript distinct from LAT.