Latently kshv-infected cells promote further establishment of latency upon superinfection with kshv

Chen Gam Ze Letova, Inna Kalt, Meir Shamay, Ronit Sarid

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a cancer-related virus which engages in two forms of infection: latent and lytic. Latent infection allows the virus to establish long-term persistent infection, whereas the lytic cycle is needed for the maintenance of the viral reservoir and for virus spread. By using recombinant KSHV viruses encoding mNeonGreen and mCherry fluorescent proteins, we show that various cell types that are latently-infected with KSHV can be superinfected, and that the new incoming viruses establish latent infection. Moreover, we show that latency establishment is enhanced in superinfected cells compared to primary infected ones. Further analysis revealed that cells that ectopically express the major latency protein of KSHV, LANA-1, prior to and during infection exhibit enhanced establishment of latency, but not cells expressing LANA-1 fragments. This observation supports the notion that the expression level of LANA-1 following infection determines the efficiency of latency establishment and avoids loss of viral genomes. These findings imply that a host can be infected with more than a single viral genome and that superinfection may support the maintenance of long-term latency.

Original languageEnglish
Article number11994
JournalInternational Journal of Molecular Sciences
Volume22
Issue number21
DOIs
StatePublished - 5 Nov 2021

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Funding

Funding: This research was funded by the Israel Science Foundation, grant number 1365/15.

FundersFunder number
Israel Science Foundation1365/15

    Keywords

    • Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV)
    • Latency-associated nuclear antigen 1 (LANA-1)
    • Latent infection
    • Primary infection
    • Superinfection

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