Divergent Roles of Autophagy in Virus Infection

Chiramel, Abhilash I.; Brady, Nathan R.; Bartenschlager, Ralf

Autophagy adaptors, referred to as SLRs, are considered as PRRs that can selectively target a variety of pathogens for autophagic degradation [60] . The cytoplasm offers a diverse range of autophagic targets that vary in size and complexity, ranging from protein aggregates up to complete organelles, which can be selectively recognized and sequestered by proteins that function as autophagic adaptors [60] . The main autophagic adaptors that are classified as SLRs in response to bacterial and viral infections, include p62, NBR1 (neighbor of BRCA1 gene 1), NDP52 (nuclear dot protein 52 kDa) and optineurin [60] . Typically, SLRs contain cargo recognition and capture domains, LC3-interacting regions (LIR) to target captured cargo (bacteria or viruses) to the autophagosomal compartment and additional protein interaction domains that are involved in inflammatory processes [60] . However, in the case of Salmonella infection, it was demonstrated that pathogen recognition and capture occurs via multiple SLRs, such as p62, NDP52 and optineurin, by recognition of conventional or branched ubiquitin chains that were associated with or in close proximity of cytosolic salmonellae [60, 61] .