Avian influenza has emerged as a devastating disease and may cross species barrier and adapt to a new host, causing enormous economic loss and great public health threats, and non-structural protein 1 (NS1) is a multifunctional non-structural protein of avian influenza virus (AIV) that counters cellular antiviral activities and is a virulence factor. RNA interference (RNAi) provides a powerful promising approach to inhibit viral infection specifically. To explore the possibility of using RNAi as a strategy against AIV infection, after the fusion protein expression plasmids pNS1-enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP), which contain the EGFP reporter gene and AIV NS1 as silencing target, were constructed and NS1-EGFP fusion protein expressing HEK293 cell lines were established, four small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) targeting NS1 gene were designed, synthesized, and used to transfect the stable cell lines. Flow cytometry, real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and Western blot were performed to assess the expression level of NS1. The results suggested that sequence-dependent specific siRNAs effectively inhibited mRNA accumulation and protein expression of AIV NS1 in vitro. These findings provide useful information for the development of RNAi-based prophylaxis and therapy for AIV infection.

College of Agriculture Hainan Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal Reproduction and Breeding and Epidemic Disease Research Animal Genetic Engineering Key Laboratory of Haikou Hainan University Haidian Island Haikou People's Republic of China

College of Life Scienses Huazhong Normal University Wuhan People's Republic of China

Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology National Research Center for Wildlife Born Diseases Institute of Zoology Chinese Academy of Scienses Beijing People's Republic of China

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