Fig. 1

Screening of highly potent siRNAs against VZV. A Scheme of screening strategy. The selection criteria and sequence numbers remaining at the ending of each stage were individually indicated. The lower part is the siRNA location in the VZV genome. B Representative fluorescent images of VZV gE expression in ARPE-19 cells that were transfected with 40 nM of siRNAs 6 h before infection by VZV v-Oka at moi of 0.3 and incubated for 2 days. The same dose of the negative control RNA (NC) was also applied. Representative siRNAs were abbreviated as si-ORF7, si-ORF9, and si-ORF68. gE was stained green and nuclei were labeled with DAPI (blue), scale bars = 200 μm. C The relative fluorescence intensity in B. Values are the mean ± S.D. of triplicated treatments; *P < 0.05; ***P < 0.001. D–F The inhibitory capability to target gene of siRNAs. ARPE-19 cells were transfected with 40 nM of siRNA 6 h before infection by VZV v-Oka at moi of 0.3 and incubated for 2 days. The expression level of target gene was detected by RT-qPCR; ***P < 0.001