Computational analysis to predict role of human microRNAs in Ebola virusgenome

Abstract— The Ebola virus is one of the most dangerous viruses in Filoviridae family. It causes fatal hemorrhagic fever in both non-human and human primates. The fatality rate is up to ninety percent. There is no effective treatment against EBOV infection so far. By using host microRNAs, we have explored for potential anti-viral therapeutics against EBOV infection, which may down-regulate viral gene expression in order to suppress viral replication. We have identified eight human miRNAs from eight potential hairpin sequences of EBOV genome. Our study provided an interesting hypothesis that those miRNAs are hsa-miR-3915, hsa-miR-6750-5p, hsa-miR-4452, hsa-miR-4796-5p, hsa-miR-671-3p, hsa-miR-5096, hsa-miR-302c-3p and hsa-miR-2054. We suggested that these hairpin sequences could be use as anti-viral therapeutics to quell the replication of EBOV infection in human