Avian reovirus (ARV) infection induced apoptosis in vitro and vivo; nevertheless, the intracellular molecular mechanisms have not been sufficiently revealed. In the previous studies, there have been shown that cellular apoptosis caused by ARV were related with GRP78/IRE1/XBP1 pathway. Protein kinase RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), inositol-requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1) and activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6) are core molecules in unfold protein response (UPR) and play critical role in ER stress related apoptosis, as well as downstream regulation factors, as Caspase-12 and C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP). In this study, we investigated with a focus on the contribution of UPR related signal pathways in the mechanism of ARV mediated apoptosis. Our results showed that the key molecules of UPR pathways proteins, ATF6, PERK and IRE1 as well as Caspase-12 and cleaved-Caspase-3 expression significant increased both in transcript and protein level in ARV infected cultured Vero cells. In the same time, the ARV induces apoptosis was observed by flow cytometric analysis. Further study revealed that when inhibit the UPR effect by 4PBA pretreated or knockdown of ATF6 by lentivirus mediated shRNA abolished the activation effect of UPR, Caspase-12, cleaved-Caspase-3 activation, as well as the apoptosis induction by ARV infection. The present study provides mechanistic insights into that UPR particular ATF6 played critical roles and works upstream of caspase in the process of cellular apoptosis induced by ARV infection.
Keywords: ATF6; Apoptosis; Avian reovirus; Unfold protein response.
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