A fusion protein of vimentin with Fc fragment inhibits Japanese encephalitis virus replication

Taoping Zhang; Zhixin Chen; Lyu Xie; Ruixian Xu; Lu Chen; Ting Jia; Wengang Shi; Yongbo Wang; Yuzhu Song; Qinqin Han; Xueshan Xia; Tao Yuan; Jinyang Zhang

doi:10.3389/fvets.2024.1368725

A fusion protein of vimentin with Fc fragment inhibits Japanese encephalitis virus replication

Front Vet Sci. 2024 Mar 4:11:1368725. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2024.1368725. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Taoping Zhang^#^{1

2

3}, Zhixin Chen^#¹, Lyu Xie^#⁴, Ruixian Xu¹, Lu Chen¹, Ting Jia¹, Wengang Shi¹, Yongbo Wang⁵, Yuzhu Song¹, Qinqin Han¹, Xueshan Xia¹, Tao Yuan^{2

6}, Jinyang Zhang^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Life Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China.
² Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Clinical Virology, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
³ Yunnan Province Clinical Research Center for Gynecological and Obstetric Disease, Kunming, China.
⁴ Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, School of Basic Medicine, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ Department of Clinical Laboratory, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
⁶ Department of Gynecology, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV), a member of the Flaviviridae family and a flavivirus, is known to induce acute encephalitis. Vimentin protein has been identified as a potential receptor for JEV, engaging in interactions with the viral membrane protein. The Fc fragment, an integral constituent of immunoglobulins, plays a crucial role in antigen recognition by dendritic cells (DCs) or phagocytes, leading to subsequent antigen presentation, cytotoxicity, or phagocytosis. In this study, we fused the receptor of JEV vimentin with the Fc fragment of IgG and expressed the resulting vimentin-Fc fusion protein in Escherichia coli. Pull-down experiments demonstrated the binding ability of the vimentin-Fc fusion protein to JEV virion in vitro. Additionally, we conducted inhibition assays at the cellular level, revealing the ability of vimentin-Fc protein suppressing JEV replication, it may be a promising passive immunotherapy agent for JEV. These findings pave the way for potential therapeutic strategies against JEV.

Keywords: Fc fragment; JEV; antiviral; fusion protein; vimentin.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by Yunnan Provincial Key Laboratory of Clinical Virology (Grant number 202002AG070062-2101 to TY), Yunnan Province Clinical Research Center for Gynecological and Obstetric Disease (Grant number 2022YJZX-FC01), Key Project of Basic Research Plan of Yunnan Province (202401AS070101), Yunnan Major Scientific and Technological Projects (No. 202302AG050003) and Xing Dian Ying Cai Support Plan of Yunnan Province (XDYC-QNRC-2022-0368).