TY - JOUR TI - KHNYN is essential for the zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) to restrict HIV-1 containing clustered CpG dinucleotides AU - Ficarelli, Mattia AU - Wilson, Harry AU - Pedro Galão, Rui AU - Mazzon, Michela AU - Antzin-Anduetza, Irati AU - Marsh, Mark AU - Neil, Stuart JD AU - Swanson, Chad M A2 - Ojala, Päivi M A2 - Simon, Viviana A2 - Emerman, Michael A2 - Freed, Eric VL - 8 PY - 2019 DA - 2019/07/09 SP - e46767 C1 - eLife 2019;8:e46767 DO - 10.7554/eLife.46767 UR - https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.46767 AB - CpG dinucleotides are suppressed in most vertebrate RNA viruses, including HIV-1, and introducing CpGs into RNA virus genomes inhibits their replication. The zinc finger antiviral protein (ZAP) binds regions of viral RNA containing CpGs and targets them for degradation. ZAP does not have enzymatic activity and recruits other cellular proteins to inhibit viral replication. We found that KHNYN, a protein with no previously known function, interacts with ZAP. KHNYN overexpression selectively inhibits HIV-1 containing clustered CpG dinucleotides and this requires ZAP and its cofactor TRIM25. KHNYN requires both its KH-like domain and NYN endonuclease domain for antiviral activity. Crucially, depletion of KHNYN eliminated the deleterious effect of CpG dinucleotides on HIV-1 RNA abundance and infectious virus production and also enhanced the production of murine leukemia virus. Overall, we have identified KHNYN as a novel cofactor for ZAP to target CpG-containing retroviral RNA for degradation. KW - HIV KW - CpG dinucleotide KW - ZAP KW - TRIM25 KW - KHNYN KW - innate immunity JF - eLife SN - 2050-084X PB - eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd ER -