MiR-23a promotes the replication of HSV-1.

<p>(A) HeLa cells were transfected with Pri-miR-23a, pcDNA3, Anti-miR-23a and pRNAT-U6.2, respectively. At 24 h post-transfection, total RNA was extracted and analyzed for miR-23a expression by quantitative real-time PCR. (B) HeLa cells were transfected as indicated in (A). Cell viability was measured by MTT assay at 24 h, 48 h and 72 h post-transfection. To up-regulate miR-23a, two doses of vectors were used for transfection, 0.5 µg/well and 0.3 µg/well. Another group was transfected with Anti-miR-23a and its control vector in the same way. (C–F) HeLa cells were transfected as indicated in (A), 24 h post-transfection, cells were infected with HSV-1 at 0.01 PFU/cell. At 48 h post-infection, the radius of the cytopathic area was measured by neutral red staining. The scale bar represents 100 µm (C). Total viral yields (D) and yield of progeny virions from the culture supernatant (E) were determined by standard plaque assays. Level of glycoprotein expression was determined by immunofluorescence assay (F). All data represent the mean value ± SD of at least three independent experiments. *: p<0.05; **: p<0.01; ***: p<0.001; <i>ns</i>: No significant differences by Student's t test.