Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) causes severe enteric disease in swine and continues to impose substantial economic losses on the global pig industry. Understanding the host determinants that govern PEDV entry is therefore critical for elucidating the mechanisms of infection. Here, we show that efficient PEDV entry is closely associated with intact and functional intracellular cholesterol transport in host cells. We identified the cholesterol transporter Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) as a critical host factor required for PEDV entry and demonstrated that NPC1 facilitates viral internalization through direct interaction with the S2 subunit of the PEDV spike protein. In addition, coordinated functions of the NPC1/NPC2 cholesterol transport system are involved in this process. By revealing the functional dependence of PEDV entry on host cholesterol trafficking, this study highlights this pathway as a potential target for therapeutic intervention.
Ebola virus, a member of the Filoviridae family, causes severe disease in humans.
Gilchuk et al. isolated and characterized broadly neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies
active against all three cl...
Understanding how immune status shapes within-host SARS-CoV-2 diversity is key for interpreting transmission risk and evolutionary potential. Immunocompromised patients are often presumed to harbor more diverse viral populations, yet evidence early in infection remains limited. Analyzing samples, we compared minor variant (intra-host single-nucleotide variant [iSNV]) patterns between immunocompromised and immunocompetent individuals and evaluated lineage-specific effects. We found comparable within-host diversity, but normalized polymorphic sites were higher in immunocompetent than in immunocompromised individuals when considering all lineages. We observed an Mµ-restricted S-region signal: immunocompetent hosts showed higher S-region iSNV allele frequencies, whereas immunocompromised hosts exhibited a shift toward synonymous S-region iSNVs. These results refine assumptions about early infection in immunocompromised hosts, emphasize the value of reporting synonymous and non-synonymous changes, and highlight that conclusions can depend on viral lineage and the diversity metric considered. Our study underscores the need for immunophenotype-informed studies to test whether synonymous iSNVs modulate viral expression, replication, and transmission.
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Alpha-synuclein at the crossroads of host–virus interactions: immunological roles beyond the nervous system journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
