Email this page

Print this page

Autophagic Punctum

Autophagy evasion in herpesviral latency

Soohwan Oh, Xiaofei E, Seungmin Hwang and Chengyu Liang

Autophagy constitutes a major catabolic process for the quality control of internal proteins and organelles of eukaryotic cells, and is emerging as an essential part of the host antiviral defense. Many studies have shed light on the importance of autophagy in homeostasis, but it is not well understood how viruses co-opt the cellular autophagic pathway to establish virulence in vivo. Our recent study presents direct in vivo evidence for the key role of the anti-autophagic aspect of the virally encoded Bcl-2 proteins in the chronic infection of oncogenic γ-herpesviruses and proposes that cellular autophagy may have a substantial effect on viral persistence and may influence the in vivo fitness of viruses. This discovery expands upon known antiviral activities of the autophagy machinery and also suggests new approaches for treating some virally induced diseases.

Punctum to: E X, Hwang S, Oh S, Lee J-S, Jeong JH, Gwack Y, Kowalik TF, Sun R, Jung JU, Liang C. Viral Bcl-2-mediated evasion of autophagy aids chronic infection of γHerpesvirus 68. PLoS Pathogen 2009; 5:e1000609; PMID: 19816569; DOI 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000609.

Authors

Soohwan Oh

Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology; University of Southern California; Los Angeles, CA USA

Xiaofei E

Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology; University of Massachusetts Medical School; Worcester, MA USA

Seungmin Hwang

Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology; University of California; Los Angeles, CA USA

Chengyu Liang Corresponding author: chengyu.liang@usc.edu

Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology; University of Southern California; Los Angeles, CA USA