Effective recognition of viral infection and subsequent triggering of antiviral innate immune responses are essential for the host antiviral defense, which is tightly regulated by multiple regulators, including microRNAs. Previous reports have shown that some microRNAs are induced during virus infection and participate in the regulation of the innate antiviral response. However, whether the type I IFN response is regulated by miR-223 is still unknown. Here, we reported that vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infection induced significant up-regulation of miR-223 in murine macrophages. We observed that miR-223 overexpression up-regulated type I IFN expression levels in VSV-infected macrophages. We also demonstrated that miR-223 directly targets FOXO3 to regulate the type I IFN production. Furthermore, type I IFN, which is triggered by VSV infection, is responsible for the up-regulation of miR-223, thus forming a positive regulatory loop for type I IFN production. Our results uncovered a novel mechanism of miR-223-mediated regulation of type I IFN production in the antiviral innate immunity for the first time.Host innate immune response is the first line of defense following viral infection, which recognizes viral components and produces proinflammatory cytokines and interferons (1-8). The IFN family of antiviral cytokines, especially type I IFN, plays pivotal roles in the host antiviral innate immune response. They are known to inhibit viral replication and mediate protection against viral infection (1-4). Type I IFN production during virus infection should be tightly controlled by multiple intracellular regulators to initiate an appropriate immune response for eliminating the invading pathogens and preventing the development of immunopathological conditions; principal among these is the family of interferon regulatory factors (9 -12). Among the interferon regulatory factors, IRF3 and IRF7 are crucial in the host response to virus infection, inducing the transcription of the type I IFN genes, including the Ifn- gene as well as a number of Ifn-␣ genes (13-16). It has been reported that IRF7 is regulated at three different levels, including the transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and post-translational levels. Transcription of the Irf7 gene is induced by viral infection or type I IFN stimulation (17), although the stability of IRF7 is regulated by FOXO3 (18).MicroRNAs (miRNAs) 4 are small, non-coding, regulatory RNAs that range from 18 to 22 nucleotides in length. They are mainly encoded by gene introns but are also sometimes encoded by dedicated genes. The miRNAs regulate the expression of specific target proteins by either inhibiting translation or degrading the corresponding mRNA (19,20). They regulate between one-and two-thirds of the human genome and participate in most of the cell's main functions (including growth, proliferation, differentiation, signal transduction, apoptosis, metabolism, and aging) (21). It has been reported that, with respect to virus infection, miRNAs constitute a critical additional c...