Patent ID: 8303946

Claim:
A method of inhibiting replication of a West Nile Virus in a cell, the method comprising: infecting the cell with the West Nile Virus; providing to the cell an effective amount of a nucleic acid construct consisting of the 75 3′ terminal nucleotides of the negative strand nucleic acid of a West Nile Virus, the 3′ terminal nucleotides comprising a stem loop structure with a first single-stranded loop and a second-single stranded loop, the first-single stranded loop comprising a nucleotide sequence of UAAU and the second-single stranded loop comprising a nucleotide sequence of UUAAU, wherein the first single-stranded loop and the second-single stranded loop are capable of associating with at least one host-cell protein, wherein the at least one host-cell protein is T-cell intracellular antigen-related (TIAR) protein or T-cell intracellular antigen-1 (TIA-1) protein; and wherein the nucleic acid construct inhibits replication of the West Nile Virus in the infected cell by inhibiting or interfering with the binding between the at least one host-cell protein in the cell and a negative strand RNA of the infecting West Nile Virus.