PARP9-DTX3L ubiquitin ligase targets host histone H2BJ and viral 3C protease to enhance interferon signaling and control viral infection

Zhang, Yong; Mao, Dailing; Roswit, William T; Jin, Xiaohua; Patel, Anand C; Patel, Dhara A; Agapov, Eugene; Wang, Zhepeng; Tidwell, Rose M; Atkinson, Jeffrey J; Huang, Guangming; McCarthy, Ronald; Yu, Jinsheng; Yun, Nadezhda E; Paessler, Slobodan; Lawson, T Glen; Omattage, Natalie S; Brett, Tom J; Holtzman, Michael J

Enhancing the response to interferon could offer an immunological advantage to the host. In support of this concept, we used a modified form of the transcription factor STAT1 to achieve hyper-responsiveness to interferon without toxicity and markedly improve antiviral function in transgenic mice and transduced human cells. We found that the improvement depended on expression of a PARP9-DTX3L complex with distinct domains for interaction with STAT1 and for activity as an E3 ubiquitin ligase that acted on host histone H2BJ to promote interferon-stimulated gene expression and on viral 3C proteases to degrade these proteases via the immunoproteasome. Thus, PARP9-DTX3L acted on host and pathogen to achieve a double layer of immunity within a safe reserve in the interferon signaling pathway. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version of this article (doi:10.1038/ni.3279) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.