A major downregulation of circulating microRNAs in Zika acutely infected patients: potential implications in innate and adaptive immune response signaling pathways
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2022
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Zika virus (ZIKV) is an arbovirus mainly transmitted by mosquitos of the genus Aedes. The first
cases of ZIKV infection in South America occurred in Brazil in 2015. The infection in humans
causes diverse symptoms from asymptomatic to a syndrome-like dengue infection with fever,
arthralgia, and myalgia. Furthermore, ZIKV infection during pregnancy is associated with fetal
microcephaly and neurological disorders. The identification of host molecular mechanisms
responsible for the modulation of different signaling pathways in response to ZIKV is the first
step to finding potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets and understanding disease
outcomes. In the last decade, it has been shown that microRNAs (miRNAs) are important
post-transcriptional regulators involved in virtually all cellular processes. miRNAs present in body
fluids can not only serve as key biomarkers for diagnostics and prognosis of human disorders
but also contribute to cellular signaling offering new insights into pathological mechanisms.
Here, we describe for the first time ZIKV-induced changes in miRNA plasma levels in patients
during the acute and recovery phases of infection. We observed that during ZIKV acute
infection, among the dysregulated miRNAs (DMs), the majority is with decreased levels when
compared to convalescent and control patients. We used systems biology tools to build and
highlight biological interactions between miRNAs and their multiple direct and indirect target
molecules. Among the 24 DMs identified in ZIKV + patients, miR-146, miR-125a-5p, miR-30-
5p, and miR-142-3p were related to signaling pathways modulated during infection and
immune response. The results presented here are an effort to open new vistas for the key roles
of miRNAs during ZIKV infection.
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Zika infection, Systems biology, microRNA profiling, Target prediction, Viruses
Citação
SILVA, Ana Carolina Carvalho et al. A major downregulation of circulating microRNAs in Zika acutely infected patients: potential implications in innate and adaptive immune response signaling pathways. Frontiers in Genetics, Lausanne, v. 13, e857728, 2022. DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2022.857728. Disponível em: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.857728/full. Acesso em: 16 abr. 2025.