Inhibition of RGNNV by dsRNA in the orange-spotted grouper

Abstract

Nervous necrosis virus (NNV) is highly contagious and virulent and causes neural disease in many marine and brackish water fish. To date, there is no effective treatment for NNV. In this study, we evaluated the antiviral potential of long double-strand RNA (dsRNA) against red-spotted grouper nervous necrosis virus (RGNNV). Plasmids containing the fish U6 promoter were engineered to express dsRNA targeting the RGNNV capsid RNA. In vitro and in vivo data show that our engineered dsRNA system successfully inhibited RGNNV infection in grouper, which indicates that this method may be a potential novel approach for RNA-guided immunity against other RNA viruses in fish.

Keywords

• SiRNA
• RNA virus
• Gene targeting
• Drug delivery