A white spot syndrome virus microRNA promotes the virus infection by targeting the host STAT

JAK/STAT pathway plays an important role in invertebrates during virus infection. However the microRNA (miRNA)-mediated regulation of JAK/STAT is not intensively investigated. Viral miRNAs, encoded by virus genome, have emerged as important regulators in the virus-host interactions. In this study, a WSSV (white spot syndrome virus)-encoded miRNA (WSSV-miR-22) was characterized in shrimp during virus infection. The results showed that the viral miRNA could promote WSSV infection in shrimp by targeting the host STAT gene. When the expression of JAK or STAT was knocked down by sequence-specific siRNA, the WSSV copies in shrimp were significantly increased, indicating that the JAK/STAT played positive roles in the antiviral immunity of shrimp. The further findings revealed that TEP1 and TEP2 were the effectors of JAK-STAT signaling pathway. The silencing of TEP1 or TEP2 led to an increase of WSSV copies in shrimp, showing TEP1 and TEP2 were involved in the shrimp immune response against virus infection. Therefore our study presented a novel viral miRNA-mediated JAK/STAT-TEP1/TEP2 signaling pathway in virus infection.