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Terminal Loop Sequences in Viral Double-Stranded RNAs Modulate RIG-I Signaling

Hackbart, M.; Wang, P.; Gnazzo, V.; Lopez, C. B.

2025-08-04 microbiology
10.1101/2025.08.02.668285 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Detection of foreign RNAs is a crucial activation step for innate immunity pathways in response to viral infections. Retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) is a cytoplasmic RNA sensor that triggers type I and III interferon (IFN) expression and activates the antiviral response in response to RNA virus infection. The activating ligand for RIG-I has been shown to be 5-triphosphated, blunt-ended, double-stranded (ds)RNA, but questions remain on the impact of other RNA motifs on RIG-I activation. Here we show that immune-activating copy-back viral genomes (cbVGs) contain RNA stem loops away from the 5 end of the RNA that enhance RIG-I signaling and IFN expression. Importantly, the sequence of the terminal loops of the activating motifs impacts the strength of IFN expression. Additionally, we show that synthetic versions of these cbVG-derived stem loops trigger innate immune responses in mice demonstrating their potential as immunostimulants in vivo.

Published in RNA (predicted rank #2) · training set

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