Ibrahim Catarina Harumi Oda, Takamatsu Yuki
Department of Virology, Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki City 852-8523, Japan.
Graduate School of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki City 852-8523, Japan.
Int J Mol Sci. 2025 Sep 1;26(17):8485. doi: 10.3390/ijms26178485.
Intercellular pathways of viral infection in host cells offer advantages, such as efficiency of viral spread and immune surveillance evasion, compared to cell-free viral infection. Therefore, some enveloped viruses present both cell-to-cell and cell-free forms of infection in the host organisms. In this study, we investigated the occurrence of Ebola virus (EBOV) and Marburg virus (MARV) nucleocapsid exchange in vitro between interconnected Huh7 cells using live-cell imaging methods. Moreover, through plasmid transfection methods, we demonstrated that nucleocapsid-like structures (NCLSs) formed with EBOV NP, VP35, VP24, and VP30 proteins can also be transported intercellularly to non-transfected cells through cell-to-cell contact regions in a process involving interaction with the host cell actin cytoskeleton. Our results provide further evidence of cell-to-cell transport as a mechanism of filovirus spread and support the need for further research in this field to develop new intervention methods targeting this transmission pathway.
与无细胞病毒感染相比，病毒在宿主细胞中的细胞间感染途径具有一些优势，例如病毒传播效率和逃避免疫监视。因此，一些包膜病毒在宿主生物体中呈现细胞间和无细胞两种感染形式。在本研究中，我们使用活细胞成像方法，研究了埃博拉病毒（EBOV）和马尔堡病毒（MARV）核衣壳在体外相互连接的Huh7细胞之间的交换情况。此外，通过质粒转染方法，我们证明，由EBOV的NP、VP35、VP24和VP30蛋白形成的核衣壳样结构（NCLSs）也可以通过细胞间接触区域在细胞间转运至未转染的细胞，此过程涉及与宿主细胞肌动蛋白细胞骨架的相互作用。我们的结果为细胞间转运作为丝状病毒传播机制提供了进一步证据，并支持在该领域开展进一步研究以开发针对这一传播途径的新干预方法的必要性。
