Coat protein complex I facilitates dengue virus production

Oxidative stress specifically inhibits replication of dengue virus

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are chemically active species which are involved in maintaining cellular and signalling processes at physiological concentrations. Therefore, cellular components that regulate redox balance are likely to play a crucial role in viral life-cycle either as promoters of viral replication or with antiviral functions. Zinc is an essential micronutrient associated with anti-oxidative systems and helps in maintaining a balanced cellular redox state. Here, we show that zinc chelation leads to induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in epithelial cells and addition of zinc restores ROS levels to basal state. Addition of ROS (H₂O₂) inhibited dengue virus (DENV) infection in a dose-dependent manner indicating that oxidative stress has adverse effects on DENV infection. ROS affects early stages of DENV replication as observed by quantitation of positive and negative strand viral RNA. We observed that addition of ROS specifically affected viral titres of positive strand RNA viruses. We further demonstrate that ROS specifically altered SEC31A expression at the ER suggesting a role for SEC31A-mediated pathways in the life-cycle of positive strand RNA viruses and provides an opportunity to identify drug targets regulating oxidative stress responses for antiviral development.

Roles of secretory glycoproteins in particle formation of Flaviviridae viruses

The family Flaviviridae comprises four genera, namely, Flavivirus, Pestivirus, Pegivirus, and Hepacivirus. These viruses have similar genome structures, but the genomes of Pestivirus and Flavivirus encode the secretory glycoproteins E^rns and NS1, respectively. E^rns plays an important role in virus particle formation and cell entry, whereas NS1 participates in the formation of replication complexes and virus particles. Conversely, apolipoproteins are known to participate in the formation of infectious particles of hepatitis C virus (HCV) and various secretory glycoproteins play a similar role in HCV particles formation, suggesting that there is no strong specificity for the function of secretory glycoproteins in infectious-particle formation. In addition, recent studies have shown that host-derived apolipoproteins and virus-derived E^rns and NS1 play comparable roles in infectious-particle formation of both HCV and pestiviruses. In this review, we summarize the roles of secretory glycoproteins in the formation of Flaviviridae virus particles.