The Function And Molecular Mechanism Investigation Of Nrf2-ARE Pathway In White Spot Syndrome Virus Infection

Living cells maintain homeostasis by adjusting the intracellular oxidation and reduction levels.The Nrf2/ARE pathway has been regarded as a critical switch in the initiation of cellular defence systems for surviving oxidative insults and viral infection.However,little is known about the function of Nrf2-ARE pathway in the antiviral process of shrimps.In this study,the MjNrf2 gene of shrimps was cloned.The MjNrf2 gene contains the 1992 bp ORF that encodes 664 amino acids.WSSV infection is shown to induce a progressive induction in nuclear and total cellular levels of the transcription factor Nrf2.Knockdown the expression of MjNrf2 inhibit the replication of WSSV and up-regulated the survial rate of shrimp.Injection the activating agent of Nrf2,SFN,enhanced the expression level of MjNrf2 and the virus copy in vivo.Further research indicated that an ARE sequence located in both in the promoter regions of vp41b and iel genes.Chromatin immune precipitation analysis confirmed that MjNrf2 binds to the ARE element of vp41b and iel in WSSV infected shrimp.Knock down MjNrf2 inhibited the expression of VP41B and SFN treatment facilitated the expression of VP41B.To explore the role of VP41B in WSSV replication,the expression of VP41B was inhibited by dsRNA interference.The result showed,the levels of IEland VP28 expression in shrimp were lower than that in the control group.Taken together,these results indicate that the host Nrf2-ARE signaling pathway was used by WSSV to activate the expression of gene with ARE element and promoting the amplification of virus.This is the first report about the regulation of Nrf2-ARE signaling pathway function on virus gene expression.It offered new knowledge on understanding the Nrf2-ARE signaling pathway and new idea for shrimp disease control.