Screening for potent HCV IRES-targeting siRNA by siRNA tiling experiments.

<p>(A) The proposed secondary structure of HCV IRES. The IRES region spanning nts 277–343 (shown in gray) was targeted by siRNAs. The target site of the selected potent anti-HCV siRNA siIE22 is shown in blue. The base-pairings in the proposed pseudoknot (PK) structures (PKs 1 and 2) are shown in green. (B) siRNA sequences tiled over HCV IRES. The underlined sequence represents a mapped druggable region (nts 313–343) where the targets of selected potent siRNAs were enriched. (C) Anti-HCV activity of HCV IRES-targeting siRNAs in Huh7 cells transfected with Rluc-JFH1 (top panel), an HCV replicon encoding the Rluc reporter. The Rluc gene was fused in frame to the DNA sequence encoding 17 N-terminal amino acid residues of the HCV core protein. Huh7 cells were electroporated with the Rluc-JFH1 <i>in vitro</i> RNA transcript and pGL3 plasmid used for normalization of transfection efficiency. After 24 h, the cells were transfected with each of the IRES-specific siRNAs or a scrambled (Sc) siRNA (50 nM). At 48 h post-transfection, luciferase activity was measured. (D) Huh7 cells harboring an HCV subgenomic replicon RNA (R-1) were transfected with each of the IRES-specific siRNAs or Sc siRNA (10 nM each). At 48 h post-transfection, HCV RNA levels were quantified by real-time qRT-PCR. *, <i>P <</i> 0.01. (E and F) Dose-dependent inhibition of HCV-replication by siIE22 was assessed in R-1 cells, as described in (D). HCV genome copy number and HCV proteins (NS5A and NS5B) levels were analyzed by qRT-PCR (E) and western blotting (F), respectively.