Dr. George Belov
The cellular pathways hijacked to support viral replication may provide a promising class of targets for anti-viral therapeutics, which will be effective against broad groups of viruses relying on the same cellular pathways. All positive-sense RNA viruses share the requirement for cellular membranes to assemble replication complexes. Vet Med faculty, Dr. Ekaterina Viktorova, Assistant Research Professor, and Dr. Georgie Belov, Associate Professor, and their colleagues investigated the mechanism underlying the massive membrane remodeling in poliovirus-infected cells. Their results demonstrate reorganization of the cellular lipid synthesizing machinery upon infection and identify lipid droplets as the organelles supporting the structural development of the replication membranes. Moreover, they also show that inhibition of the infection-specific phospholipid synthesis renders virus propagation much more vulnerable to the cellular anti-viral defenses, providing a new direction for the development of anti-viral therapeutics. Thus, the study in Dr. Belov's laboratory establishes an important role of lipid droplets in picornavirus infection and provides a novel paradigm for controlling viral infections, not only by targeting the viral replication per se but also by making it more visible to the host defense mechanisms. The work was supported in part by R01AI125561 grant from the NIH and University of Maryland UMB-UMCP SEED grant to GAB.
Viktorova EG, Nchoutmboube JA, Ford-Siltz LA, Iverson E, Belov GA (2018) Phospholipid synthesis fueled by lipid droplets drives the structural development of poliovirus replication organelles. PLoS Pathog 14(8): e1007280. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1007280
