Investigating the Role of MOV10 during Influenza A Infection
Influenza A virus (IAV) is a respiratory virus that infects mammalian and avian species. IAV’s ability to infect a broad range of hosts, cross species barriers, and cause pandemics makes this virus of great concern. Host species have immune systems that recognize the invading virus and mount an immune response to create an antiviral environment. During this chain of events, interferons are released, and they promote the transcription of interferon stimulated genes (ISGs). ISGs are known to restrict viruses at a variety of steps throughout the viral replication cycle. One interferon stimulated gene is MOV10, which is known to restrict IAV in human cells (Zhang et al. (2016); Liu et al. (2019)). In avian species, the role of the MOV10 gene during IAV infection is unknown. Due to the role of MOV10 in humans, we hypothesized that avian MOV10 restricts IAV. I aimed to replicate published experiments that investigated IAV infections in human cells with MOV10 overexpression or knock out with the goal of ultimately testing if avian MOV10 also restricts IAV infections. Over the course of the project, our experiments came short of replicating published data. From these experiments, I highlight the utility of TIDE analysis and western blotting for future projects. Additionally, I discuss potential changes and new approaches that will contribute to next steps in this project. Researching MOV10 in human and avian species will make a meaningful contribution to our understanding of host immune defenses and interferon stimulated genes.