Ultra Structural Characterisation of Tetherin - a Protein Capable of Preventing Viral Release from the Plasma Membrane 英文参考文献.docVIP

Viruses 2010, 2, 987-994; doi:10.3390/v2040987 OPEN ACCESS viruses ISSN 1999-4915 /journal/viruses Commentary Ultra Structural Characterisation of Tetherin - a Protein Capable of Preventing Viral Release from the Plasma Membrane Ravindra K. Gupta 1,2 and Greg J. Towers 1,2, * 1 Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Molecular Virology, University College London, London W1T4JF, UK 2 Division of Infection and Immunity, University College London, 46 Cleveland Street, London W1T 4JF, UK * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: g.towers@ucl.ac.uk; Tel.: +44 20 7679 9535. Received: 23 March 2010; in revised form: 7 April 2010 / Accepted: 7 April 2010 / Published: 12 April 2010 Abstract: Tetherin is an antiviral restriction factor made by mammalian cells to protect them from viral infection. It prevents newly formed virus particles from leaving infected cells. Its antiviral mechanism appears to be remarkably uncomplicated. In 2 studies published in PLoS Pathogens electron microscopy is used to support the hypothesis that the tethers that link HIV-1 virions to tetherin expressing cells contain tetherin and are likely to contain tetherin alone. They also show that the HIV-1 encoded tetherin antagonist that is known to cause tetherin degradation, Vpu, serves to reduce the amount of tetherin in the particles thereby allowing their release. Restriction factors are a class of interferon inducible proteins that are active against retroviruses as well as other unrelated viruses. They include TRIM5?, active against retroviruses [1] and recently described to be active against herpes viruses [2], and the APOBEC3 proteins APOBEC3G and APOBEC3F, which are active against retroviruses and hepatitis B virus [3,4], reviewed in [5]. In early 2008 a further restriction factor dubbed tetherin, previously referred to as BST2/CD317/HM1.24, was described [6,7]. Tetherin has ant