Herpesviruses: interfering innate immunity by targeting viral sensing and interferon pathways

Summary
Type I‐interferon (IFN‐I) induction pathway is one of the most commonly stimulated signaling pathways in response to viral infection. During viral infection this pathway is stimulated by various pattern‐recognition receptors, which recognize different pathogen‐associated molecular patterns. The pathways stimulated by different pattern‐recognition receptors merge into common transcription factors IRF3 and IRF7, lead to the production of IFN‐I. The secreted IFN‐I stimulates JAK‐STAT pathway leading to induction of interferon‐stimulated genes (ISGs). The ISGs along with IFN‐I create antiviral state to eliminate the virus from host. HHV infection enhances IFN‐I‐mediated innate antiviral response during both de novo infection and lytic reactivation from latency. However, HHV developed various molecular strategies to evade the sudden upsurge of the IFN‐I and IFN‐I‐mediated antiviral response to establish a successful infection. Here, we focus on IFN‐I induction and signaling pathways induced by three representative HHVs from each sub‐family of HHV and strategies acquired by these HHVs to subvert the induction of IFN‐I and ISGs to evade the host innate immunity. These fundamental understanding provides the clue for viral targets for pharmacological manipulation to develop potential therapeutics for broad subtypes of HHVs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Source: Reviews in Medical Virology - March 1, 2015 Category: Virology Authors: Puja Kumari, Sathish Narayanan, Himanshu Kumar Tags: Review Source Type: research