• Dengue virus hijacks a noncanonical oxidoreductase function of a cellular oligosaccharyltransferase complex [preprint]

      Lin, David L.; Cherepanova, Natalia A.; Bozzacco, Leonia; MacDonald, Margaret R.; Gilmore, Reid; Tai, Andrew W. (2017-06-01)
      Dengue virus (DENV) is the most common arboviral infection globally, infecting an estimated 390 million people each year. We employed a genome-wide CRISPR screen to identify host dependency factors required for DENV propagation, and identified the oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) complex as an essential host factor for DENV infection. Mammalian cells express two OSTs containing either STT3A or STT3B. We found that the canonical catalytic function of the OSTs as oligosaccharyltransferases is not necessary for DENV infection, as cells expressing catalytically inactive STT3A or STT3B are able to support DENV propagation. However, the OST subunit MAGT1, which associates with STT3B, is also required for DENV propagation. MAGT1 expression requires STT3B, and a catalytically inactive STT3B also rescues MAGT1 expression, supporting the hypothesis that STT3B serves to stabilize MAGT1 in the context of DENV infection. We found that the oxidoreductase CxxC active site motif of MAGT1 was necessary for DENV propagation as cells expressing an AxxA MAGT1 mutant were unable to support DENV infection. Interestingly, cells expressing single-cysteine CxxA or AxxC mutants of MAGT1 were able to support DENV propagation. Utilizing the engineered peroxidase APEX2, we demonstrate the close proximity between MAGT1 and NS1 or NS4B during DENV infection. These results reveal that the oxidoreductase activity of the STT3B-containing OST is necessary for DENV infection, which may guide the development of antivirals targeting DENV.
    • Photocross-linking of nascent chains to the STT3 subunit of the oligosaccharyltransferase complex

      Nilsson, IngMarie; Kelleher, Daniel J.; Miao, Yiwei; Shao, Yuanlong; Kreibich, Gert; Gilmore, Reid; von Heijne, Gunnar; Johnson, Arthur E. (2003-05-26)
      In eukaryotic cells, polypeptides are N glycosylated after passing through the membrane of the ER into the ER lumen. This modification is effected cotranslationally by the multimeric oligosaccharyltransferase (OST) enzyme. Here, we report the first cross-linking of an OST subunit to a nascent chain that is undergoing translocation through, or integration into, the ER membrane. A photoreactive probe was incorporated into a nascent chain using a modified Lys-tRNA and was positioned in a cryptic glycosylation site (-Q-K-T- instead of -N-K-T-) in the nascent chain. When translocation intermediates with nascent chains of increasing length were irradiated, nascent chain photocross-linking to translocon components, Sec61alpha and TRAM, was replaced by efficient photocross-linking solely to a protein identified by immunoprecipitation as the STT3 subunit of the OST. No cross-linking was observed in the absence of a cryptic sequence or in the presence of a competitive peptide substrate of the OST. As no significant nascent chain photocross-linking to other OST subunits was detected in these fully assembled translocation and integration intermediates, our results strongly indicate that the nascent chain portion of the OST active site is located in STT3.