Activation of NIX-mediated mitophagy by an interferon regulatory factor homologue of human herpesvirus

Mai Tram Vo, Barbara J. Smith, John Nicholas and Young Bong Choi ()
Additional contact information
Mai Tram Vo: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Barbara J. Smith: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
John Nicholas: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Young Bong Choi: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract Viral control of mitochondrial quality and content has emerged as an important mechanism for counteracting the host response to virus infection. Despite the knowledge of this crucial function of some viruses, little is known about how herpesviruses regulate mitochondrial homeostasis during infection. Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) is an oncogenic virus causally related to AIDS-associated malignancies. Here, we show that HHV-8-encoded viral interferon regulatory factor 1 (vIRF-1) promotes mitochondrial clearance by activating mitophagy to support virus replication. Genetic interference with vIRF-1 expression or targeting to the mitochondria inhibits HHV-8 replication-induced mitophagy and leads to an accumulation of mitochondria. Moreover, vIRF-1 binds directly to a mitophagy receptor, NIX, on the mitochondria and activates NIX-mediated mitophagy to promote mitochondrial clearance. Genetic and pharmacological interruption of vIRF-1/NIX-activated mitophagy inhibits HHV-8 productive replication. Our findings uncover an essential role of vIRF-1 in mitophagy activation and promotion of HHV-8 lytic replication via this mechanism.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11164-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11164-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11164-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().