Journal of Antivirals & Antiretrovirals
Open Access
ISSN: 1948-5964
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 1948-5964
+44 1300 500008
M Prabhudutta
Institute of Life Sciences, India
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Antivir Antiretrovir
The re-emergence of chikungunya virus (CHIKV) in India after 32 years and its worldwide epidemics has raised a great public health concern. To understand factors contributing to its rapid spread, a biological comparison was carried out between Indian outbreak strains DRDE-06 with the prototype strain S-27. Our results showed that DRDE-06 has faster and higher replication efficiency in comparison to S 27. From our microarray analysis, we short-listed around 1000 host genes that were antagonically expressed for S-27 and DRDE-06 infected samples. Moreover, it was observed that stress response, cell cycle, translational control and p38MAPK signaling pathways are some of the pathways, modulated during CHIKV infection in mammalian cells. Furthermore, from the above mentioned differentially expressed genes, we have identified a novel host factor MK3 (MAPK activated protein kinase 3) that has a role in the replication of CHIKV. It has been observed that silencing of MK3 through siRNA reduces the production of new viral progenies and viral protein expressions through plaque assay and Western blot analyses. It was also found that siRNA treatment blocked the phosphorylation and activation of its downstream signaling molecules like Hsp27 and Akt, thereby inhibiting the cell survival pathway. Moreover, pMK3 was found to colocalize and interact with the CHIKV-nsP2 protein during infection. Hence, this study indicates that MK3 is an essential host factor for CHIKV infection and may provide new insight into nsP2-host protein interaction for viral protein translation which has potential to develop control strategies for CHIKV infection in future.
Email: rinku.prabhu@gmail.com