Functional analysis of baculoviral long non-coding RNAs

杆状病毒具有一个大的圆形dsDNA基因组，包裹在杆状病毒粒子中。在杆状病毒感染细胞的转录组分析中，我们鉴定了100多个假定的长非编码RNA(NcRNAs)，其中大部分表达于杆状病毒早期或晚期启动子基序。为了更好地了解这些假定的ncRNAs的作用，我们产生了13个ncRNA启动子失活的突变NPV。我们发现，大多数突变体都存在病毒生长缺陷，这表明杆状病毒长cRNAs在病毒繁殖中起着重要作用。

The baculoviruses possess a large circular, dsDNA genome encapsidated within a rodshaped virion. During the transcriptome analysis of baculovirus-infected cells, we identified more than one hundred of putative long non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), most of which are expressed from recognized baculovirus early or late promoter motifs. To understand better the roles of these putative ncRNAs, we have generated 13 mutant NPVs whose ncRNA promoters are inactivated. We found that most of the mutants showed defects in virus growth, indicating that baculovirus longncRNAs play important roles in virus propagation.