Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences, Department of
Date of this Version
10-13-2015
Citation
PNAS, October 13, 2015, vol. 112, no. 41, pp. 12818–12823.
Abstract
Neuroinvasive herpesviruses display a remarkable propensity to enter the nervous system of healthy individuals in the absence of obvious trauma at the site of inoculation. We document a repurposing of cellular ubiquitin during infection to switch the virus between two invasive states. The states act sequentially to defeat consecutive host barriers of the peripheral nervous system and together promote the potent neuroinvasive phenotype. The first state directs virus access to nerve endings in peripheral tissue, whereas the second delivers virus particles within nerve fibers to the neural ganglia. Mutant viruses locked in either state remain competent to overcome the corresponding barrier but fail to invade the nervous system. The herpesvirus “ubiquitin switch” may explain the unusual ability of these viruses to routinely enter the nervous system and, as a consequence, their prevalence in human and veterinary hosts.
Included in
Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology Commons, Cell and Developmental Biology Commons, Immunology and Infectious Disease Commons, Medical Sciences Commons, Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology Commons, Veterinary Pathology and Pathobiology Commons
Comments
Copyright 2015 The Authors. Used by permission.