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Evidence that a mechanism for efficient flavivirus budding upregulates MHC class I
Author(s) -
Lobigs Mario,
Müllbacher Arno,
Lee Eva
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
immunology and cell biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.999
H-Index - 104
eISSN - 1440-1711
pISSN - 0818-9641
DOI - 10.1046/j.0818-9641.2004.01218.x
Subject(s) - flavivirus , mhc class i , biology , virology , major histocompatibility complex , interferon , mechanism (biology) , microbiology and biotechnology , virus , immune system , immunology , philosophy , epistemology
An appealing hypothesis for the biological role of flavivirus‐induced, interferon‐independent, upregulation of MHC class I on the surface of infected cells is that of viral immune evasion from NK cell recognition. Here we show that a mechanism for efficient flavivirus morphogenesis interferes with the MHC class I pathway, using a flavivirus budding mutant and recombinant expression of wild‐type and mutant forms of the flavivirus structural proteins. We propose that the phenomenon of flavivirus‐mediated MHC class I upregulation is a by‐product of a unique assembly strategy evolved by flaviviruses and therefore did not evolve primarily as an immune escape mechanism for virus growth in the vertebrate host.