Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus is a threat to animal and public health worldwide. Till date, the H5N1 virus has claimed 402 human lives, with a mortality rate of 58% and has caused the death or culling of millions of poultry since 2003. In this study, we have designed three siRNAs (PB2-2235, PB2-479 and NP-865) targeting PB2 and NP genes of avian influenza virus and evaluated their potential, measured by hemagglutination (HA), plaque reduction and Real time RT-PCR assay, in inhibiting H5N1 virus (A/chicken/Navapur/7972/2006) replication in MDCK cells. The siRNAs caused 8- to 16-fold reduction in virus HA titers at 24 h after challenged with 100TCID₅₀ of virus. Among these siRNAs, PB2-2235 offered the highest inhibition of virus replication with 16-fold reduction in virus HA titer, 80% reduction in viral plaque counts and 94% inhibition in expression of specific RNA at 24 h. The other two siRNAs had 68–73% and 87–88% reduction in viral plaque counts and RNA copy number, respectively. The effect of siRNA on H5N1 virus replication continued till 48h (maximum observation period). These findings suggest that PB2-2235 could efficiently inhibit HPAI H5N1 virus replication.

Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are a group of non-protein-coding RNAs which are longer than 200nucleotides. LncRNAs play important roles in epigenetic modification, transcription and post-transcriptionalregulation, maintenance of normal tissue development and differentiation. LncRNA could serve as a biomarkerfor diagnosis and prognosis as well as a molecular target for therapy in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).Therefore, we have determined the expression profile of 5-lncRNAs namely UCA1, TUG1, HOTAIR,MALAT1, and H19 by quantitative real-time PCR in tumor tissues and adjacent normal tissue of 32 OSCCpatients. To determine the expression, methylation status and genomic alterations in lncRNAs across pancancer,TCGA datasets were analyzed by UALCAN, MEXPRESS and cBioPortal database. Then, we determinedthe association between lncRNA expression and clinicopathological attributes of patients by Spearman’srank test. Expression of UCA1 and TUG1 genes was up-regulated in 54.83% and 53.12% OSCC tumors,respectively. Importantly, expression of MALAT1 and H19 was down-regulated in tumor tissues of 62.5% and81.25% respectively of OSCC patients. Except for MALAT1, our experimental data showed concordance withthe TCGA analysis. Expression of HOTAIR in OSCC tumors was positively correlated with tumor volume,whereas MALAT1 and H19 negatively correlated with the smoking status of patients.