Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2018

Comments

This article has been peer reviewed. It is the author’s final published version in Nature Communications, Volume 9, Issue 1, December 2018, Article number 5440.

The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07772-z. Copyright © Hernáez et al.

Abstract

Soluble cytokine decoy receptors are potent immune modulatory reagents with therapeutic applications. Some virus-encoded secreted cytokine receptors interact with glycosaminoglycans expressed at the cell surface, but the biological significance of this activity in vivo is poorly understood. Here, we show the type I interferon binding protein (IFNα/βBP) encoded by vaccinia and ectromelia viruses requires of this cell binding activity to confer full virulence to these viruses and to retain immunomodulatory activity. Expression of a variant form of the IFNα/βBP that inhibits IFN activity, but does not interact with cell surface glycosaminoglycans, results in highly attenuated viruses with a virulence similar to that of the IFNα/βBP deletion mutant viruses. Transcriptomics analysis and infection of IFN receptor-deficient mice confirmed that the control of IFN activity is the main function of the IFNα/βBP in vivo. We propose that retention of secreted cytokine receptors at the cell surface may largely enhance their immunomodulatory activity.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

PubMed ID

30575728

Language

English

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