Identification of feline foamy virus-derived miRNA

In this study, we identified the miRNAs expressed by the feline foamy virus (FFV). A previous computer-based prediction of miRNA expression regions based on the RNA polymerase III promoter by Kinkaid et al for retroviruses predicted that FFV expresses miRNAs, but expression had not yet been confirmed (Kinkaid et al., mBio, 2014). In this study, we extracted small RNAs from 159 newly isolated FFV strains (accession: MW389244) and performed deep sequencing to identify four FFV-derived miRNAs. This is the small RNA deep sequencing data of CRFK and FFV-infected CRFK. We also verified the repressive effect of miRNA on gene expression by RISC assay.