Adenosine deaminases that act on RNA (ADARs) convert adenosine to inosine in double-stranded regions of RNA. ADAR activity is in the nucleus in Xenopus laevis stage VI oocytes, and released into the cytoplasm at oocyte maturation. We previously demonstrated that a cytoplasmic double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) binding factor(s), cyto-dsRBP, protects microinjected dsRNA from the ADAR released at matura...

Double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) is a potent trigger of sequence-specific gene silencing mechanisms known as RNA silencing or RNA interference. The recognition of the target sequences is mediated by ribonucleoprotein complexes that contain 21- to 28-nucleotide (nt) guide RNAs derived from processing of the trigger dsRNA. Here, we review the experimental and bioinformatic approaches that were used to...

A distinct double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) cryptic virus, named spinach cryptic virus 1 (SpCV1), was identified from spinach transcriptome datasets. The SpCV1 genome has two dsRNA genome segments. The larger dsRNA1 has an open reading frame for a conserved RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). The smaller dsRNA2 encodes a putative coat protein (CP). The sequence identity of SpCV1 RdRp and CP to the ...

In animals, double-stranded short interfering RNA (siRNA) and single-stranded microRNA (miRNA) regulate gene expression by targeting homologous mRNA for cleavage or by interfering with their translation, respectively. siRNAs are processed from injected or transgene-derived, long, perfect double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), while miRNAs are processed from short, imperfect dsRNA precursors transcribed f...

The mammalian innate immune system uses several sensors of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) to develop the interferon response. Among these sensors are dsRNA-activated oligoadenylate synthetases (OAS), which produce signaling 2',5'-linked RNA molecules (2-5A) that activate regulated RNA decay in mammalian tissues. Different receptors from the OAS family contain one, two, or three copies of the 2-5A ...

Purified preparations of La France isometric virus (LIV), an unclassified, double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) virus of Agaricus bisporus, were associated with an RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDRP) activity. RDRP activity cosedimented with the 36-nm isometric particles and genomic dsRNAs of LIV during rate-zonal centrifugation in sucrose density gradients, suggesting that the enzyme is a constituent o...

The virus-host interactions that influence hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication are largely unknown but are thought to involve those that disrupt components of the innate intracellular antiviral response. Here we examined cellular antiviral pathways that are triggered during HCV RNA replication. We report that (i) RNA replication of HCV subgenomic replicons stimulated double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)...

The demonstration that spray-induced gene silencing (SIGS) can confer strong disease resistance, bypassing the laborious and time-consuming transgenic expression of double-stranded (ds)RNA to induce pathogenic targets, was ground-breaking. However, future field applications will require fundamental mechanistic knowledge dsRNA uptake, processing, transfer. There is increasing evidence extracellu...

We report the discovery and characterization of a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) mycovirus isolated from the human pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus fumigatus tetramycovirus-1 (AfuTmV-1), which reveals several unique features not found previously in positive-strand RNA viruses, including the fact that it represents the first dsRNA (to our knowledge) that is not only infectious a...

Recognition of pathogens by the innate immune system is mediated by pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), which recognize specific molecular structures of the infectious agents and subsequently trigger expression of genes involved in host defense. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) represent a well-characterized class of membrane-bound PRRs, and the RNA helicase retinoic acid inducible gene I (RIG-I) h...