Viruses: Hostages to the Cell

Host Defense against Viral Infection Involves Interferon Mediated Down-Regulation of Sterol Biosynthesis

“…drugs that target metabolic pathways, of protective innate immunity as holding future promise for developing host-directed anti-viral therapies. Overall, this study supports the original concept [40],[41] of selectively targeting host pathways as an efficacious anti-infective strategy.…”

“…We are interested in elucidating the relationship between transcriptional networks and immune regulatory pathways and host-cell dependency mechanisms of pathogens, especially viruses, as identifying host dependency mechanisms at the pathway level provides a new molecular systems-level approach for understanding viral pathogenesis, which can be harnessed as an anti-infective strategy [40]–[42]. For many years, studies of virus-host interactions, in particular for large DNA viruses, have proven invaluable in the characterization of host cell molecular pathways and their connectivity to the inflammatory response.…”

Viral Enhancer Mimicry of Host Innate-Immune Promoters

“…Nuclear DNA viruses are dependent on the host transcriptional machinery to express the first viral genes; for example the immediate-early (IE) control elements of DNA viruses are by definition absolutely dependent on host transcription factors (TF) [12]. Therefore, these viruses are particularly hostage to their host transcriptional environment [13], [14]. Here we propose that mimicry of regulatory DNA sequences by viral regulatory regions may also provide an additional strategy to counteract at IE times of infection the innate-immune response.…”

Use of Logic Theory in Understanding Regulatory Pathway Signaling in Response to Infection

“…The pathogen suppresses the immune response future science group using these pathways and exploits the cellular and metabolic processes of the host for its own survival [45]. They therefore serve as potential targets for drug intervention.…”