Cytoskeleton—a crucial key in host cell for coronavirus infection

Wen, Zeyu; Zhang, Yue; Lin, Zhekai; Shi, Kun; Jiu, Yaming

The emerging coronavirus pandemic is threatening the public health all over the world. Cytoskeleton is an intricate network involved in controlling cell shape, cargo transport, signal transduction, and cell division. Infection biology studies have illuminated essential roles for cytoskeleton in mediating the outcome of host‒virus interactions. In this review, we discuss the dynamic interactions between actin filaments, microtubules, intermediate filaments, and coronaviruses. In one round of viral life cycle, coronaviruses surf along filopodia on the host membrane to the entry sites, utilize specific intermediate filament protein as co-receptor to enter target cells, hijack microtubules for transportation to replication and assembly sites, and promote actin filaments polymerization to provide forces for egress. During coronavirus infection, disruption of host cytoskeleton homeostasis and modification state is tightly connected to pathological processes, such as defective cytokinesis, demyelinating, cilia loss, and neuron necrosis. There are increasing mechanistic studies on cytoskeleton upon coronavirus infection, such as viral protein‒cytoskeleton interaction, changes in the expression and post-translation modification, related signaling pathways, and incorporation with other host factors. Collectively, these insights provide new concepts for fundamental virology and the control of coronavirus infection.