Browsing by Subject "Host-Pathogen Interactions"
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Item Autophagy in Antiviral Immunity(2012-08-15) Orvedahl, Anthony Walter; Levine, BethAutophagy is an evolutionarily conserved pathway in which cytoplasmic material is sequestered in a double-membrane vesicle and delivered to the lysosome for degradation. During times of stress, autophagy functions to generate essential nutrients through the degradation of non-essential cytoplasmic contents. It is also the only known mechanism for removal of damaged or superfluous organelles and cytoplasmic contents that are too large to be degraded by the proteasome. Given the critical role for autophagy in stress response and in maintaining cell cytoplasmic quality control, it is not surprising that autophagy plays an essential role in the host response to infection, and that microbes have evolved mechanisms to counteract or evade autophagy. In this work, we studied the role of autophagy inhibition in a mouse model of herpes simplex virus type I (HSV-1) encephalitis, investigated the role of autophagy in protection against Sindbis virus infection of the central nervous system, and identified novel host genes involved in targeting viral proteins to the autophagy pathway. We found that the HSV-1 encoded neurovirulence protein ICP34.5 interacted with the host autophagy protein Beclin 1, and that this interaction was essential for HSV-1 neurovirulence. This was the first example of a viral virulence protein that targets host autophagy, and provided evidence that autophagy functions in innate immunity to viruses. In the second study, we found that the host autophagy gene Atg5 was required to protect against lethal Sindbis virus CNS diseases, and that autophagy targeted viral proteins for degradation in brains of infected mice and cells in vitro. We found that the autophagy adaptor protein p62 was involved in targeting viral proteins for autophagic degradation and this promoted survival of infected cells. This study demonstrated that clearance of viral proteins by autophagy was an important mechanism for cellular and organismal survival during viral infection. Lastly, we performed a genome-wide siRNA screen to identify novel host factors required for autophagic targeting of viral proteins. We identified previously unappreciated cellular networks and genes that were involved in targeting viral proteins for autophagy. One of these factors, SMURF1, is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that not only functions to target viral proteins, but is also involved in targeting damaged mitochondria for autophagic clearance. [Keywords: autophagy; innate immunity; virus; infection; Herpes Simplex Virus Tupe I (HSV-1); Sindbis virus; mitophagy; central nervous system (CNS); pb2/SQSTM1; SMURF1]Item Inhibition of Cell Proliferation through Regulated Intramembrane Proteolysis of CREB3L1(2012-07-10) Denard, Bray Standard; Ye, JinCREB3L1/OASIS is a cellular transcription factor synthesized as a membrane- bound precursor and activated by regulated intramembrane proteolysis in response to stimuli like ER stress. By comparing gene expression between Huh7 subclones that are permissive for hepatitis C virus (HCV) replication versus the non-permissive parental Huh7 cells, we identified CREB3L1 as a host factor that inhibits proliferation of virus-infected cells. Upon infection with diverse DNA and RNA viruses, including murine gamma-herpesvirus 68, HCV, West Nile virus (WNV), and Sendai virus, CREB3L1 was proteolytically cleaved, allowing its NH2 terminus to enter the nucleus and induce multiple genes encoding inhibitors of the cell cycle to block cell proliferation. Consistent with this, we observed a necessity for CREB3L1 expression to be silenced in proliferating cells that harbor replicons of HCV or WNV. Our results indicate that CREB3L1 may play an important role in limiting virus spread by inhibiting proliferation of virus-infected cells. Doxorubicin is used extensively for chemotherapy of diverse types of cancer, yet the mechanism through which it inhibits proliferation of cancer cells remains unclear. Here we report that doxorubicin stimulates de novo synthesis of ceramide, which in turn activates CREB3L1, a transcription factor synthesized as a membrane-bound precursor. Doxorubicin stimulates proteolytic cleavage of CREB3L1 by Site-1 Protease and Site-2 Protease, allowing the NH2-terminal domain of CREB3L1 to enter the nucleus where it activates transcription of genes encoding inhibitors of the cell cycle, including p21. Knockdown of CREB3L1 mRNA in human hepatoma Huh7 cells and immortalized human fibroblast SV589 cells conferred increased resistance to doxorubicin, whereas overexpression of CREB3L1 in human breast cancer MCF-7 cells markedly enhanced the sensitivity of these cells to doxorubicin. These results suggest that measurement of CREB3L1 expression may be a useful biomarker in identifying cancer cells sensitive to doxorubicin. [Keywords: CRE34, HCV, RIP, Doxorubicin, ceramide, myriocin, proliferation, virus, p21, collagen]