Dual signaling via interferon and DNA damage response elicits entrapment by giant PML nuclear bodies

  1. Myriam Scherer
  2. Clarissa Read
  3. Gregor Neusser
  4. Christine Kranz
  5. Anna K Kuderna
  6. Regina Müller
  7. Florian Full
  8. Sonja Woerz
  9. Anna Reichel
  10. Eva-Maria Schilling
  11. Paul Walther
  12. Thomas Stamminger  Is a corresponding author
  1. Ulm University Medical Center, Germany
  2. ULM University, Germany
  3. Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany

Abstract

PML nuclear bodies (PML-NBs) are dynamic interchromosomal macromolecular complexes implicated in epigenetic regulation as well as antiviral defense. During herpesvirus infection, PML-NBs induce epigenetic silencing of viral genomes, however, this defense is antagonized by viral regulatory proteins such as IE1 of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV). Here, we show that PML-NBs undergo a drastic rearrangement into highly enlarged PML cages upon infection with IE1-deficient HCMV. Importantly, our results demonstrate that dual signaling by interferon and DNA damage response is required to elicit giant PML-NBs. DNA labeling revealed that invading HCMV genomes are entrapped inside PML-NBs and remain stably associated with PML cages in a transcriptionally repressed state. Intriguingly, by correlative light and transmission electron microscopy (EM), we observed that PML cages also entrap newly assembled viral capsids demonstrating a second defense layer in cells with incomplete first line response. Further characterization by 3D EM showed that hundreds of viral capsids are tightly packed into several layers of fibrous PML. Overall, our data indicate that giant PML-NBs arise via combined interferon and DNA damage signaling which triggers entrapment of both nucleic acids and proteinaceous components. This represents a multilayered defense strategy to act in a cytoprotective manner and to combat viral infections.

Data availability

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting file; Source Data files have been provided for Figures 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Figure 5-figure supplement 2

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Myriam Scherer

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Clarissa Read

    Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, ULM University, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Gregor Neusser

    Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, ULM University, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Christine Kranz

    Institute of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, ULM University, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Anna K Kuderna

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Regina Müller

    Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Florian Full

    Institute of Clinical and Molecular Virology, Friedrich Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Sonja Woerz

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Anna Reichel

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Eva-Maria Schilling

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Paul Walther

    Central Facility for Electron Microscopy, ULM University, Ulm, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. Thomas Stamminger

    Institute of Virology, Ulm University Medical Center, Ulm, Germany
    For correspondence
    thomas.stamminger@uni-ulm.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9878-3119

Funding

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (STA357/7-1)

  • Thomas Stamminger

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (STA357/8-1)

  • Thomas Stamminger

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

© 2022, Scherer et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 1,709
    views
  • 276
    downloads
  • 10
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Myriam Scherer
  2. Clarissa Read
  3. Gregor Neusser
  4. Christine Kranz
  5. Anna K Kuderna
  6. Regina Müller
  7. Florian Full
  8. Sonja Woerz
  9. Anna Reichel
  10. Eva-Maria Schilling
  11. Paul Walther
  12. Thomas Stamminger
(2022)
Dual signaling via interferon and DNA damage response elicits entrapment by giant PML nuclear bodies
eLife 11:e73006.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73006

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.73006

Further reading

    1. Immunology and Inflammation
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Ainhoa Arbués, Sarah Schmidiger ... Damien Portevin
    Research Article

    The members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) causing human tuberculosis comprise 10 phylogenetic lineages that differ in their geographical distribution. The human consequences of this phylogenetic diversity remain poorly understood. Here, we assessed the phenotypic properties at the host-pathogen interface of 14 clinical strains representing five major MTBC lineages. Using a human in vitro granuloma model combined with bacterial load assessment, microscopy, flow cytometry, and multiplexed-bead arrays, we observed considerable intra-lineage diversity. Yet, modern lineages were overall associated with increased growth rate and more pronounced granulomatous responses. MTBC lineages exhibited distinct propensities to accumulate triglyceride lipid droplets—a phenotype associated with dormancy—that was particularly pronounced in lineage 2 and reduced in lineage 3 strains. The most favorable granuloma responses were associated with strong CD4 and CD8 T cell activation as well as inflammatory responses mediated by CXCL9, granzyme B, and TNF. Both of which showed consistent negative correlation with bacterial proliferation across genetically distant MTBC strains of different lineages. Taken together, our data indicate that different virulence strategies and protective immune traits associate with MTBC genetic diversity at lineage and strain level.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Eva Herdering, Tristan Reif-Trauttmansdorff ... Ruth Anne Schmitz
    Research Article

    Glutamine synthetases (GS) are central enzymes essential for the nitrogen metabolism across all domains of life. Consequently, they have been extensively studied for more than half a century. Based on the ATP-dependent ammonium assimilation generating glutamine, GS expression and activity are strictly regulated in all organisms. In the methanogenic archaeon Methanosarcina mazei, it has been shown that the metabolite 2-oxoglutarate (2-OG) directly induces the GS activity. Besides, modulation of the activity by interaction with small proteins (GlnK1 and sP26) has been reported. Here, we show that the strong activation of M. mazei GS (GlnA1) by 2-OG is based on the 2-OG dependent dodecamer assembly of GlnA1 by using mass photometry (MP) and single particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) analysis of purified strep-tagged GlnA1. The dodecamer assembly from dimers occurred without any detectable intermediate oligomeric state and was not affected in the presence of GlnK1. The 2.39 Å cryo-EM structure of the dodecameric complex in the presence of 12.5 mM 2-OG demonstrated that 2-OG is binding between two monomers. Thereby, 2-OG appears to induce the dodecameric assembly in a cooperative way. Furthermore, the active site is primed by an allosteric interaction cascade caused by 2-OG-binding towards an adaption of an open active state conformation. In the presence of additional glutamine, strong feedback inhibition of GS activity was observed. Since glutamine dependent disassembly of the dodecamer was excluded by MP, feedback inhibition most likely relies on the binding of glutamine to the catalytic site. Based on our findings, we propose that under nitrogen limitation the induction of M. mazei GS into a catalytically active dodecamer is not affected by GlnK1 and crucially depends on the presence of 2-OG.