Recent studies demonstrated that, in response to viral infection or IFN, many lncRNAs were deregulated, and some of them impact on viral replication in an IFN-dependent or -independent manner; some viruses may hijack host lncRNAs to facilitate their replication and latency (Li et al., 2016; Ma et al., 2017; Wang P. et al., 2017). The gene discussed is IFNA1; the disease is viral infectious disease.