Diverse intracellular pathogens activate Type III Interferon expression from peroxisomes

Detection of viral RNA in the cytosol of infected cells depends on RIG-I-lilke recptors that use MAVS as an adapter protein to activate antiviral gene expression. MAVS is tail-anchored on mitochondria, mitochondria-associated membranes and peroxisomes. As peroxisomal membrane proteins can be mistargeted to mitochondria in the absence of peroxisomes, we hypothesized that MAVS-dependent antiviral gene expression is activated more efficiently in this instance. Pex19 deficient skin firoblasts derived from a Zellweger syndrome patient lack peroxisomes. We introduced wild type Pex19 into these cells to restore peroxisome formation and assessed alterations in the gene expression profile of these cells after reovirus infection. 6 samples: 9 and 16 hrs after reovirus infection at an MOI of 100 total RNA was extracted from Pex19 reconstituted and deficient cell lines. Gene expression data was compared to uninfected cells.