Virion proteomics of genetically intact HCMV reveals a regulator of envelope glycoprotein composition that protects against humoral immunity
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a clinically important herpesvirus that has coevolved for millions of years with its human host, and establishes lifelong persistent infection. A substantial proportion of its 235 kb genome is dedicated to manipulating host immunity through targeting antiviral host proteins for degradation or relocalization. Quantitative proteomics of the infected cell has extensively characterized these processes, but the cell-free virion has been less well studied. We therefore carried out proteomic analysis of a clinical HCMV strain (Merlin) virion. This revealed 18 novel components, including the viral protein gpUL141, which is recognized as an NK immune-evasin that targets several host proteins (CD155, CD112, and TRAILR) when expressed within the cell. Coimmunoprecipitation of gpUL141 from virions identified interactions with viral entry glycoproteins from the trimer (gH/gL/gO), pentamer (gH/gL/UL128/UL130/UL131A), and gH/gpUL116 complexes, as well as gB. Only interactions with gH/gB occurred in the absence of other viral proteins. Analysis supported a model in which gpUL141 homodimers independently interacted with separate gB/gH-containing complexes. gpUL141 encodes an ER retention domain that restricts trafficking through the ER/Golgi, and limited the transport of glycoprotein complexes bound by gpUL141. As a result, gpUL141 reduced levels of multiple glycoprotein complexes on the infected cell surface as well as in the virion. This reduced syncytium formation, inhibited antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC), and reduced susceptibility to neutralizing antibodies. Thus, gpUL141 represents an immune-evasin that not only targets host proteins to limit NK-cell attack, but also alters the trafficking of multiple viral glycoprotein complexes in order to evade humoral immunity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".