Title: Evolutionary and functional characterization of antiviral factors against retroviruses and RNA viruses
Directors: Lucie ETIENNE & Min QIAN
Discipline: Biology
Status: Completed Project
Starting date: 2017
Directors
Summary
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that rely on virus-host interactions to complete their replication cycle. On one hand, the virus usurps the cellular machinery to its own benefit. But on the other hand, the cell protects itself, or at least tries to do so, through a complex series of events and in particular through a large number of cellular proteins that exert a negative effect against viral replication. A thorough understanding of the mechanism whereby these cellular proteins interfere negatively with the virus is important, because it may lead to novel and still unexplored antiviral strategies. Our overall goal is therefore to discover and characterize novel antiviral effectors.
The purpose of this grant is to characterize the antiviral properties of two cellular immune proteins that were identified by Andrea Cimarelli, ENS de Lyon, and Bing Du, ECNU (JORISS-2013 project). This new partnership between Lucie Etienne (evolutionary virologist, ENS de Lyon) and Min Qian (Immunologist, ECNU) will allow us to use evolutionary analyses in combination with in vitro and in vivo virology studies to better characterize the mechanisms of antiviral inhibition.