弗林蛋白酶在病毒感染中的生物学作用

Biological function of furin in viral infections

大多数病毒感染宿主细胞需要其糖蛋白水解后才能实现,在某些情况下,糖蛋白的可切割性是病毒致病力的先决条件。这些病毒糖蛋白可被1种或几种宿主蛋白酶切割,弗林蛋白酶(Furin)就是常见的一种。Furin通过识别糖蛋白蛋白前体的特定氨基酸序列进行切割,从而进一步促进病毒感染。Furin对人类免疫缺陷病毒、黄病毒、丝状病毒和冠状病毒等很多病毒的感染都起着至关重要的作用,被认为是有希望的药物治疗和预防靶点。本文主要对Furin的生物学背景及其对病毒糖蛋白的水解功能进行综述。

Most viruses require their glycoproteins to be hydrolyzed in order to enter host cells.In some cases,the severability of viral glycoproteins is a determinant of their virulence.These viral glycoproteins can be cleaved by one or more proteases in host cells with furin as the common one.Furin further promotes viral infection by identifying specific amino acid sequences in glycoprotein precursors.Morever,furin plays a critical role in the infections of many viruses including human immunodeficiency virus,flavivirus,filamentavirus and coronavirus,and is considered as a promising drug treatment and prevention target.In this review,we summarize the biological background of furin and its hydrolysis function to viral glycoproteins.