Sumoylation at the Host-Pathogen Interface

Wilson, Van G.

The previous section detailed some of the recent work defining the interplay of viruses and sumoylation in the innate and intrinsic anti-viral response. However, given the pleiotropic roles for sumoylation in various cellular processes, it is likely the pathogens modulate sumoylation to alter many other facets of the cellular environment, not just immune response. Theoretically, pathogens could mimic or co-opt any step in the sumoylation process in order to alter the sumoylation status of viral or host proteins, and there are now excellent examples for many steps in the pathway ( Figure 1 ). The following sections will describe examples where viral proteins perturb host sumoylation, either globally or for specific targets.