Biomedical Potential of Viral and Endogenous Double-Stranded RNA Detection

Abstract

Detection of viruses, especially the ones related to infectious diseases, has attracted much attention. In recent years, we have seen an increasing number of viral infection outbreaks, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus and Zika virus, and they are spreading on a global scale at an increasingly alarming rate. Nucleic acid based methods are the most commonly employed schemes for virus detection. This includes the use of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which is routinely performed to amplify and detect viral nucleic acids. While nucleic acid-based detection is highly specific, it has the disadvantage that some prior knowledge of the virus is needed in order to prepare the relevant detection methods. Such approach can be limiting when faced with novel or mutated viruses of unknown genomic sequences. Considering that in many situations it is necessary to determine the infection status of a person without having much information regarding the nature of the virus involved, it would be highly desirable to have a primary screening tool capable of detecting many different viruses without knowing their nucleotide sequences. To design these universal virus detectors, it is important to identify biomarkers that are commonly present across many viruses. Recently, the use of long dsRNAs as a universal virus marker has gained popularity.