Feline panleucopenia virus (FPV) is a highly infectious pathogen that causes severe diseases in pets, economically important animals and wildlife in China. Although FPV was identified several years ago, little is known about how it overcomes the host innate immunity. In the present study, we demonstrated that infection with the FPV strain Philips-Roxane failed to activate the interferon β (IFN-β) pathway but could antagonize the induction of IFN stimulated by Sendai virus (SeV) in F81 cells. Subsequently, by screening FPV nonstructural and structural proteins, we found that only nonstructural protein 2 (NS2) significantly suppressed IFN expression. We demonstrated that the inhibition of SeV-induced IFN-β production by FPV NS2 depended on the obstruction of the IFN regulatory factor 3 (IRF3) signaling pathway. Further, we verified that NS2 was able to target the serine/threonine-protein kinase TBK1 and prevent it from being recruited by stimulator of interferon genes (STING) protein, which disrupted the phosphorylation of the downstream protein IRF3. Finally, we identified that the C-terminus plus the coiled coil domain are the key domains of NS2 that are required for inhibiting the IFN pathway. Our study has yielded strong evidence for the FPV mechanisms that counteract the host innate immunity.
Keywords: Feline panleucopenia virus (FPV); Nonstructural protein 2 (NS2); interferon β (IFN-β).