INTRODUCTION
During the process of virus envelopment, intracellular trafficking pathways are subverted to supply lipid membranes for virus wrapping and release. These membranes contain virus-encoded glycoproteins that play a role in attachment and fusion during virus entry. While all virus glycoproteins start their life in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the cellular sites to which they are subsequently transported and where envelopment occurs vary between virus families (
1). Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) is a large enveloped virus that has an intricate morphogenesis pathway termed the envelopment-deenvelopment-reenvelopment pathway (
2,
3), in which capsids form in the nucleus and bud through the inner nuclear membrane as primary virions (
2,
4), using virus-encoded machinery termed the nuclear egress complex (
5). The primary envelope is lost by fusion with the outer nuclear membrane, releasing naked capsids into the cytosol (
2,
3). As for cellular membrane proteins, HSV1 envelope glycoproteins are cotranslationally inserted into the ER and transported through the secretory pathway to the Golgi apparatus and plasma membrane (
6), with free capsids acquiring their final envelope from a wrapping site within the cytoplasm that contains these glycoproteins. Previously, we defined a model in which HSV1 acquires its envelope from glycoprotein-containing endocytic membranes that have been recently retrieved from the plasma membrane (
7) rather than the
trans-Golgi network (TGN) as often cited (
8–10) and in agreement with previous studies from others (
11). In this model, virus egress would then occur through the natural recycling of these membranes to the cell surface. This model has been supported by more recent studies showing that glycoproteins must be transported to the plasma membrane and endocytosed prior to envelopment taking place (
12,
13).
Using targeted small interfering RNA (siRNA) screening, four members of the Rab family of GTPases were identified as being important for HSV1 envelopment, including Rab1 in the early secretory pathway and Rab5 and Rab11 in the endocytic pathway (
7,
13). Moreover, in one of the first demonstrations of a biological role, Rab6A was shown to be critical for the transport of virus glycoproteins from the Golgi apparatus to the plasma membrane, thereby providing a source of envelope proteins for subsequent endocytic retrieval and wrapping (
13). Rab GTPases function as central regulators of the four major steps of intracellular membrane traffic, vesicle budding, delivery, tethering, and fusion, to coordinate transport and delivery pathways (
14,
15). However, they do not work alone, as these steps involve multiple cellular factors that organize, recruit, provide direction, and target specific cargoes throughout the cell. The aim of this study was to pinpoint steps along the cellular transport pathways that are exploited by HSV1 to target its envelope proteins to the correct assembly sites, where intervention would be debilitating to the virus and potentially tractable to antiviral intervention. As such, we have screened an siRNA library targeted at a rationally selected set of 82 factors, including coat proteins involved in membrane curvature and budding (
16), adaptor proteins that select cargo for vesicles (
17), membrane fusion and fission factors (
18), and Rab effector proteins that provide specificity in vesicle targeting (
19). Eleven factors were identified whose depletion altered virus production >20-fold, which are spread across the early and late secretory pathways and the endocytic pathway. While several of these factors blocked virus infection at early stages of the virus life cycle prior to morphogenesis, one of these factors, the endosomal sorting required for transport complex III (ESCRT-III) component CHMP4C, was shown to localize to and be required for the integrity of the recycling endocytic network needed for the envelopment of HSV1, which is suggestive of a role for this protein in the scission of these endocytic membranes. Hence, this study has unveiled a novel function of CHMP4C in the cell, reinforcing the power of using virus morphogenesis to identify novel activities in cellular trafficking.
DISCUSSION
The basic replication strategies of viruses, and their exploitation of the host cells that they infect, must be understood before novel therapeutics can be developed. Many highly pathogenic human viruses are surrounded by lipid envelopes that are rich in virus-encoded proteins and are derived from intracellular membranes. These pathogens are therefore highly dependent on cellular trafficking pathways for the production of infectious virus. Indeed, many potentially share common routes of envelopment, raising the possibility of targeting envelopment as a broad-spectrum intervention strategy. This study focused on the alphaherpesvirus HSV1, a large enveloped DNA virus which has a complex morphogenesis pathway involving the nucleus, the cytoplasm, and many aspects of cellular membrane trafficking pathways (
40). Given our dual goals to understand virus manipulation of cellular trafficking pathways and identify points of possible intervention, we chose to target a rationally selected set of cellular trafficking factors rather than conducting a genome-wide screen. As a proof of principle, all human Rab GTPases were screened previously for involvement in HSV1 morphogenesis, with four (Rab1, -6, -5, and -11) identified as being involved in the trafficking of virus glycoproteins and subsequent envelopment of the virus in endocytic membranes (
7,
13). In this study, a range of 82 cellular trafficking factors covering different functions in the secretory and endocytic pathways were targeted, and 11 were identified whose depletion reduced infectious virus production by >20-fold, with an additional 14 reducing virus production by >10-fold, indicating a potential role for these proteins in HSV1 infection. This outcome compares favorably with the results of a recent study on the betaherpesvirus human cytomegalovirus (hCMV), where a screen of 156 host factors involved in membrane organization found that the depletion of 15 factors reduced virus yields between 5- and 12-fold (
41). Moreover, a number of genome-wide RNA interference (RNAi) screens of different enveloped virus infections have all identified ∼300 targets out of ∼20,000 genes tested (
42–45), indicating that our targeted screen was efficient in discovering important factors.
Of the five trafficking factors that were investigated in detail, two were found to inhibit the virus life cycle at early stages of infection prior to morphogenesis. First, the depletion of the COPG1 coatomer subunit γ1, which is one of seven subunits that form the stable coat complex COPI (
21), was found to have the most profound effect on virus production in both library screens. COP1 coats form on vesicles and tubules and are responsible for the retrieval of proteins from the Golgi apparatus to the ER (
46). COP1 also localizes to endosomes, but its role there is unclear (
47). Not surprisingly, COP1 appears to be exploited by many viruses throughout their life cycles (
48) and has recently been shown to be required for hCMV infection using an siRNA screen similar to the one described here (
41). Nonetheless, although a potential role for COPG1 downstream in virus infection/trafficking of virus glycoproteins through the secretory pathway cannot be ruled out, the data presented here show that the predominant effect of COPG1 depletion is the inhibition of virus entry, potentially by reducing the level and presentation of the HSV1 receptor nectin1 at the plasma membrane. It should also be noted that COPG1 depletion affected the viability of cells, which in turn could reduce their ability to support early stages of virus infection (
Fig. 1D). Second, the depletion of the v-SNARE protein VAMP4 had a profound effect on HSV1 genome replication, upstream of virus morphogenesis, and as a consequence, VAMP4-depleted cells supported a reduced level of late protein synthesis. Given that VAMP4 is enriched in the TGN and cycles from the cell surface to the TGN (
25), this may suggest that rather than directly affecting glycoprotein trafficking, its depletion results in a global perturbation of cell integrity similar to that seen for COPG1 depletion, as evidenced by the reduced viability of VAMP4-depleted cells (
Fig. 1D). This global effect may therefore specifically affect the process of genome trafficking or genome replication in the nucleus. In short, while both these factors have important roles in intracellular trafficking, neither can be assigned a direct role in HSV morphogenesis.
Three of the factors that were investigated were shown to perturb HSV1 morphogenesis specifically. AP4E1 is a late secretory pathway protein and is a component of the adaptor protein complex AP4, a poorly characterized complex involved in non-clathrin-coat vesicle formation and cargo selection on vesicles departing the TGN (
22). AP4 is present at a relatively low abundance but is ubiquitously expressed and has been proposed to be involved in the trafficking of specialized cargoes, such as the transport of ATG9 to autophagosomes (
49,
50). Although speculative at this stage, it is possible that HSV1 utilizes AP4 to transport one or more of its glycoproteins out of the TGN, which may explain the reduced localization of gD and gE at the cell surface in AP4E1-depleted infected cells (
Fig. 4A), and further work will be required to determine if any glycoproteins contain functional AP4-binding motifs. The final two factors of the five tested, CHMP4C and STX10, were both found to localize to and be required for the integrity of recycling endosomes. This was unexpected for STX10, which has been shown previously to localize to the TGN (
24,
32). Nonetheless, it is also required for recycling the transferrin receptor to the plasma membrane (
32), a result that was confirmed here, placing its role within the recycling endocytic network and suggesting that its colocalization with the transferrin receptor in recycling endosomes may be functionally relevant. CHMP4C, on the other hand, is a component of the ESCRT-III fission machinery involved in membrane remodeling during various processes within the cell, including late endosomal sorting, plasma and nuclear membrane repair, and abscission during cytokinesis (
36). However, it has not been previously located on recycling endosomes or shown to be required for their biogenesis. Among the other factors identified as reducing virus yield and not examined further (
Table 1), the coat protein clathrin light chain A, while not being required for the formation of clathrin coats at the plasma membrane or the TGN, is required for coat formation in tubular endosomes involved in recycling to the plasma membrane (
51). Additionally, dynamin, which was also identified as a hit in the second siRNA screen, is involved in the recycling of the transferrin receptor to the plasma membrane by the above-mentioned endosome-derived clathrin-coated vesicles (
52). Collectively, these results identify multiple factors involved in the biogenesis of recycling endosomes that are important for HSV1 infection, adding weight to the importance of the recycling endocytic network in the morphogenesis of HSV1.
CHMP4 is the most abundant component of the ESCRT-III membrane-remodeling machinery and has a role in the envelopment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (
53), along with other viruses such as dengue virus (
54). While there are three paralogues of CHMP4, the efficient depletion of CHMP4A or CHMP4B in isolation or in combination had no effect on HSV1 production here, indicating that the perturbation of HSV1 morphogenesis was highly specific to CHMP4C depletion (
Fig. 5). This is in contrast to the situation with HIV budding, where CHMP4B but not -A or -C is required (
53), and indeed, this differs from the results of a previous study on HSV1 that identified CHMP4B as being important for virus morphogenesis (
34). However, in that study, the CHMP4 paralogues were not depleted, but instead, dominant negative CHMP4 proteins were overexpressed, indicating that all three dominant negative CHMP4 paralogues interfered with HSV1 production but with a greater effect of CHMP4B overexpression. While there is an apparent discrepancy with our results presented here, it should be noted that no evidence was provided in that study to show that the overexpression of each dominant negative paralogue was specific to the activity of its counterpart without interfering with the activity of the other paralogues. It is also at odds with another study that used the overexpression of dominant negative CHMP4, resulting in a greater effect of CHMP4C than of CHMP4B dominant negative expression on HSV1 production (
55). A recent study has also proposed a role for ESCRT-III in the nuclear egress of HSV1 capsids (
56). In that case, CHMP4B knockout caused a 5- to 10-fold drop in virus titers, whereas the depletion of all three paralogues together resulted in a 100-fold reduction in virus titers. However, CHMP4C depletion in isolation was not tested, and it is therefore not possible to judge the contribution made by the loss of CHMP4C in that study. Moreover, while those authors primarily reported a role for ESCRT-III at the nuclear envelope, a major effect of the absence of all three CHMP4 paralogues was the accumulation of naked capsids in the cytoplasm, similar to our results presented here. Nonetheless, although four different CHMP4C siRNAs resulted in a reduction of HSV1 production in our study here, it is still formally possible that our results were a consequence of off-target RNAi effects. Hence, in the future, it will be necessary to study HSV1 infection in cells knocked out rather than depleted for CHMP4C and to further ensure that complementation of these cells restores HSV1 yields to normal levels.
Although ESCRT-III is generally considered to be involved in the scission of cytosol-containing membranes, such as HIV budding or cytokinesis, there is also increasing evidence for a role for this machinery in the involution of membranes that exclude cytosol, as would be the case in the scission of endocytic membranes (
57). For example, the formation of peroxisomes at the ER in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae has been shown to involve snf7, the yeast counterpart of CHMP4 (
58). Of note, for the results presented here, ESCRT-III has also been shown to promote the fission of endocytic tubules from endosomal membranes (
59). The data presented here suggest that in at least some situations, and specifically in HSV1 infection, CHMP4C is required for the biogenesis of recycling endosomes. While less pronounced in uninfected cells, recycling endosomes were aberrantly localized to the MTOC in HSV1-infected cells, with thin tubules emanating toward the periphery of the cell, indicating a perturbation to the normal trafficking of this compartment. Given that this network is proposed to be important in HSV1 envelopment (
7), the profound effect of CHMP4C depletion together with HSV1 infection on the appearance of these membranes may indicate that HSV1 either specifically activates and utilizes a population that requires CHMP4C for correct scission or redirects CHMP4C for this process. Extensive tubulation of recycling endosomes has been detected in other related scenarios, such as BFA-mediated inhibition of Arf GTPases, required for coat formation and budding from membranes (
38); knockdown of endosome-localized Arf GTPases themselves (
60); and knockdown of the BIG2 guanidine exchange factor (GEF) for such Arfs (
61). Although it is not yet known if this tubulation represents abrogated fission of these membranes on the way to the ERC from sorting endosomes or on the way out of the ERC on the way to the plasma membrane (
62), it is clear that the tubulation/accumulation phenotype represents a defect in the biogenesis of recycling endosomes. This suggests that HSV1 envelopment could be inhibited in the absence of CHMP4C due to failed scission of endocytic membranes, resulting in the depletion of the pool of available wrapping membranes (
Fig. 9A). Alternatively, the capsid wrapping profiles that were detected in CHMP4C-depleted infected cells, whereby the capsid was observed in association with a cuplike double membrane that had not yet sealed to form a doubly enveloped virion (
Fig. 7H), could reflect a requirement for CHMP4C in the final closure of the neck of this structure (
Fig. 9B), a process that would share topology with canonical ESCRT-III-dependent processes (
36) such as the sealing of the phagophore in autophagy (
63). Of note, CHMP2A, which was shown recently to regulate phagophore closure (
64), was also picked up here in our second library screen as a possible factor involved in HSV1 infection (
Table 1).
It is becoming increasingly accepted that host cell processes required for virus infection could be appropriate targets for antiviral intervention (
65,
66), and virus morphogenesis and envelopment may offer an opportunity for such intervention. Moreover, the study of virus morphogenesis provides the opportunity to identify functions of as-yet-uncharacterized cellular trafficking proteins. Our discovery of a new role for CHMP4C in the biogenesis of HSV1-wrapping membranes paves the way for future work in both areas.