2019 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report

Studies on influenza A virus M2-host interactome and its role in virus replication

Research Project

Project/Area Number	16K08014
Research Institution	Hokkaido University
Principal Investigator	マンズールラシッド北海道大学, 人獣共通感染症リサーチセンター, 特任助教 (90566150)
Project Period (FY)	2016-04-01 – 2020-03-31
Keywords	Influenza A virus / M2 / Host interaction
Outline of Annual Research Achievements	The M2 protein is involved in various steps of viral replication and also affects the host cellular functions in ion channel activity-dependent and -independent manners. While en route to the cell membrane, the M2-ectodomain and cytoplasmic tail are exposed to vesicular/organelle and cytoplasmic environments, where they may interact with various cellular proteins.During this study we identified host-proteins which interact with IAV M2 protein and affect virus replication. We found two amino acid residues (position 54 and 57) uniquely different between two IAV subtypes governed the interaction of M2 with plasma membrane thereby playing role in virus budding/release. The M2 protein, besides increasing the transmembrane domain (TMD) length and having two inherent lipid raft targeting features, did not associate with lipid rafts suggesting that the M2-TMD length is not the only non-lipid microdomain localization determinant. We also found that virus release/budding required optimum length of M2-TMD.