Interaction of Frog Virus 3 with the Cytomatrix. IV. Phosphorylation of Vimentin Precedes the Reorganization of Intermediate Filaments around the Virus Assembly Sites

Abstract

SUMMARYFrog virus 3 (FV3) assembles in morphologically distinct assembly sites in the cytoplasm of infected cells. As the assembly sites form, the intermediate filaments (IF) aggregate, delimit the assembly sites, and remain so throughout infection. To determine the molecular basis of reorganization of IF, we analysed the vimentin of uninfected and FV3-infected cells by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. The results showed that (i) the vimentin was more acidic in FV3-infected cells than in uninfected cells, (ii) the acidification of vimentin in FV3-infected cells was possibly due to a fourfold increase in phosphorylation, and (iii) the phosphorylation of vimentin preceded the reorganization of IF around virus assembly sites. A temperature-sensitive mutant of FV3 (ts9467), which at the non-permissive temperature neither reorganized IF nor formed assembly sites, failed to increase the phosphorylation of vimentin. Together, the above results suggest that changes in phosphorylation may modulate IF organization and that changes in IF organization are required for FV3 assembly site formation.

Vimentin Rearrangement during African Swine Fever Virus Infection Involves Retrograde Transport along Microtubules and Phosphorylation of Vimentin by Calcium Calmodulin Kinase II

“…Vimentin rearrangement around virus factories has been documented for the iridovirus frog virus 3 (30). Interestingly, vimentin is phosphorylated in cells infected by frog virus 3, and a temperature-sensitive mutant of frog virus 3 that is unable to phosphorylate vimentin is unable to rearrange vimentin or initiate late gene expression (8,49). The results again point to a link between vimentin phosphorylation and rearrangement during virus infection and the control of late gene expression.…”

Culture medium induced vimentin reorganization associates with enhanced baculovirus-mediated gene delivery

“…5A and 6). Indeed, several viruses, such as African swine fever virus (Carvalho et al, 1988), vaccinia virus (Ferreira et al, 1994), retrovirus (Snasel et al, 2000;Naghavi and Goff, 2007), adenovirus (Belin and Boulanger, 1987), bluetongue virus (Bhattacharya et al, 2007), frog virus 3 (Chen et al, 1986) and rotavirus (Weclewicz et al, 1994) have been reported to cause remarkable changes in intermediate filament reorganization during infection.…”

A Guide to Viral Inclusions, Membrane Rearrangements, Factories, and Viroplasm Produced During Virus Replication

“…As seen for ASFV and poxviruses, the intermediate filament vimentin plays an important role in replication (Murti and Goorha, 1983). Vimentin is phosphorylated during FV3 infection, prior to factory formation (Chen et al, 1986;Willis et al, 1979), and temperature-sensitive mutants that are unable to phosphorylate vimentin do not form vimentin cages and are unable to proceed to late gene expression. Drug treatment with taxol or colchicine (Murti et al, 1988) showed that recruitment of vimentin to assembly sites requires dynamic, but not polymerizing microtubules, and microinjection of anti-vimentin antibody prevented recruitment of vimentin to factories.…”