African Swine Fever Virus F317L Protein Inhibits NF-κB Activation To Evade Host Immune Response and Promote Viral Replication
Jinping Yang, Shasha Li, Tao Feng, Xiangle Zhang, Fan Yang, Weijun Cao, Hongjun Chen, Huisheng Liu, Keshan Zhang, Zixiang Zhu, Haixue Zheng
Abstract
African swine fever (ASF) is one of the most important pig diseases, causing a high case fatality rate and trade restrictions upon reported outbreaks. The limited understanding of the functions of the proteins of the causative agent, African swine fever virus (ASFV), has become a primary barrier to developing available commercial ASFV vaccines. ASFV infection causes severe immunosuppression. However, the mechanisms are still poorly understood. Identification of the viral factors responsible for causing immunosuppression will provide targets for developing ASFV live-attenuated vaccine through deletion of these viral factors. In this study, we determined that the uncharacterized protein F317L of ASFV had an antagonistic function against host innate immune response. Knockdown of F317L expression clearly inhibited ASFV replication. This is the first report about the function of F317L protein of ASFV, which provides new data to understand how ASFV inhibits host innate immune response and provides insights for developing ASFV live-attenuated vaccine.