Award details

To investigate the role of autophagy in the replication cycles of avian viruses

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001707
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Paul Britton
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	143,680
Status	Current
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/2012
End date	31/03/2017
Duration	60 months

Abstract

Autophagy is a conserved cellular pathway whereby upon amino acid starvation, cytoplasmic content is engulfed into an autophagosome and targeted to the lysosome for degradation. This allows the recycling of nutrients and continuation of cellular processes, promoting cell survival during stress conditions. The pathway is also implicated in innate immunity to intracellular pathogens, including viruses. Several viruses encode proteins that inhibit autophagy to prevent targeting of viral particles for degradation. However, other viruses induce autophagy but divert the pathway or prevent its completion to allow more efficient replication. A commonly used marker protein to study autophagy is microtubule associated protein 1B- light chain 3 (LC3). During previous work, the avian homologue of LC3 was cloned, GFP tagged and inserted into a replication deficient, recombinant adenovirus vector, allowing autophagy to be studied in avian cells. Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) had previously been shown to induce autophagy upon infection of mammalian cells. Furthermore, expression of viral protein, nsp6, alone resulted in induction of autophagy. However, infection of avian cells did not result in induction of the pathway. This may suggest that either IBV is capable of inhibiting autophagy in avian cells or that IBV does not induce autophagy in avian cells. This project will further develop an understanding of autophagy in avian cells and to investigate the role of autophagy in the replication cycles of avian viruses.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Animal Health, Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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