The alarmin S100A9 hampers retroviral infection by limiting reverse transcription

We identified the alarmin S100A9 as a novel intracellular antiretroviral factor expressed in human monocyte-derived and skin-derived Langerhans cells (LC). The expression of S100A9 is significantly upregulated by the transforming growth factor beta in human monocyte-derived cells. We showed that S100A9 intracellular expression is decreased upon maturation and inversely correlated with an enhanced inversely correlates with the maturation level of LC and susceptibilityility to HIV-1 infection of LC. Furthermore, silencing of S100A9 in primary human LC relieves HIV-1 restriction while ectopic expression of S100A9 in various cell lines established an intrinsic resistance to both HIV-1 and MMLV infection by acting on reverse transcription. Mechanistically, the intracellular expression of S100A9 alters viral capsid uncoating and reverse transcription in a distal manner. Also, S100A9 demonstrates potent inhibitory effect against HIV-1 and MMLV reverse transcriptase (RTase) activity in-vitro in a divalent cation-dependent context. Our findings uncover an unexpected intracellular antiretroviral function of the human alarmin S100A9 and highlight a novel crosstalk betweenregulating antiretroviral immunity in Langerhans cells Expression of TGF-beta regulated genes in various differentiated human primary monocyte-derived cells