Alix serves as an adaptor that allows human parainfluenza virus type 1 to interact with the host cell ESCRT system

• Published in: PloS one 2013-03, Vol.8 (3), p.e59462-e59462
• Main Authors: Boonyaratanakornkit, Jim, Schomacker, Henrick, Collins, Peter, Schmidt, Alexander
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apoptosis; Binding, Competitive - genetics; Biochemistry; Biological response modifiers; Biology; Blotting, Western; Budding; Calcium-Binding Proteins - metabolism; Cell Cycle Proteins - metabolism; Cell division; Cellular proteins; Clonal deletion; Cytokinesis; Degradation; DNA Primers - genetics; Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport - metabolism; Fluorescent Antibody Technique; Gene deletion; Genes; Humans; Immunoprecipitation; Infectious diseases; Interferon; Kinases; Laboratories; Mass Spectrometry; Medicine; Membranes; Mutants; Mutation; Overexpression; Parainfluenza; Parainfluenza Virus 1, Human - metabolism; Phosphorylation; Plasmids - genetics; Proteasomes; Protein binding; Protein transport; Proteins; Reduction; Redundancy; Replication; Respiratory diseases; Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; RNA, Small Interfering - genetics; Signal transduction; Transcription; Transfection; Vaccines; Viral Proteins - metabolism; Virology; Viruses
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059462

The cellular ESCRT (endosomal sorting complex required for transport) system functions in cargo-sorting, in the formation of intraluminal vesicles that comprise multivesicular bodies (MVB), and in cytokinesis, and this system can be hijacked by a number of enveloped viruses to promote budding. The respiratory pathogen human parainfluenza virus type I (HPIV1) encodes a nested set of accessory C proteins that play important roles in down-regulating viral transcription and replication, in suppressing the type I interferon (IFN) response, and in suppressing apoptosis. Deletion or mutation of the C proteins attenuates HPIV1 in vivo, and such mutants are being evaluated preclinically and clinically as vaccines. We show here that the C proteins interact and co-localize with the cellular protein Alix, which is a member of the class E vacuolar protein sorting (Vps) proteins that assemble at endosomal membranes into ESCRT complexes. The HPIV1 C proteins interact with the Bro1 domain of Alix at a site that is also required for the interaction between Alix and Chmp4b, a subunit of ESCRT-III. The C proteins are ubiquitinated and subjected to proteasome-mediated degradation, but the interaction with AlixBro1 protects the C proteins from degradation. Neither over-expression nor knock-down of Alix expression had an effect on HPIV1 replication, although this might be due to the large redundancy of Alix-like proteins. In contrast, knocking down the expression of Chmp4 led to an approximately 100-fold reduction in viral titer during infection with wild-type (WT) HPIV1. This level of reduction was similar to that observed for the viral mutant, P(C-) HPIV1, in which expression of the C proteins were knocked out. Chmp4 is capable of out-competing the HPIV1 C proteins for binding Alix. Together, this suggests a possible model in which Chmp4, through Alix, recruits the C proteins to a common site on intracellular membranes and facilitates budding.