3-O-sulfation synthesizes sulfatide in the galactose moiety of galactosylceramide. Sulfatide is expressed in many organs such as the gastrointestinal tract, trachea, kidney, and central nervous system. Influenza A virus binds not only to glycoconjugates terminally containing sialic acid as a viral binding receptor but also to sulfatide not containing sialic acid. On the surface of infected cells, the envelope glycoprotein hemagglutinin of influenza A virus interacts with sulfatide. This interaction enhances the nuclear export of viral ribonucleoprotein complexes, resulting in efficient progeny viruses. Inhibiting this interaction would be a new potent anti-influenza drug that suppresses the progeny virus production in the infected cells.
Keywords: Baculovirus protein expression system; Hemagglutinin; Influenza virus; Sulfatide; Virus replication.
© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.