Background: The importance of enhancing influenza resistance in domestic flocks is quite clear both scientifically and economically. Chicken is very susceptible to influenza virus. It has been reported that human cellular cyclophilin A (CypA) impaired influenza virus infection in 293T cells. Whether chicken CypA (chCypA) inhibits influenza virus replication is not known. The molecular mechanism of resistance in chicken to influenza virus remains to be studied.
Results: The chCypA gene was isolated and characterized in the present study. It contained an ORF of 498 bp encoding a polypeptide of 165 amino acids with an estimated molecular mass of 17.8 kDa sharing high identity with mammalian CypA genes. The chCypA demonstrated an anti-influenza activity as expected. ChCypA protein was shown to be able to specifically interact with influenza virus M1 protein. Cell susceptibility to influenza virus was reduced by over-expression of chCypA in CEF cells. The production of recombinant influenza virus A/WSN/33 reduced to one third in chCypA expressing cells comparing to chCypA absent cells. ChCypA was widely distributed in a variety of chicken tissues. It localized in cytoplasm of chicken embryo fibroblast (CEF) cells. Avian influenza virus infection induced its translocation from cytoplasm into nucleus. ChCypA expression was not significantly up-regulated by avian influenza virus infection. The present study indicated that chCypA was an inhibitory protein to influenza virus replication, suggesting a role as an intrinsic immunity factor against influenza virus infection.
Conclusion: The present data demonstrates that chCypA possesses anti-influenza virus activity which allows the consideration of genetic improvement for resistance to influenza virus in chickens.