Functional proteomic analysis of novel antiviral restriction factors in primary leukocytes (360G-Wellcome-109078_Z_15_A)

This project aims to identify and characterise novel antiviral restriction factors (ARFs) that play key roles in preventing infection of primary leukocytes. ARFs may function by preventing viral entry or exit at the cell surface, or replication at various intracellular stages. I will focus on the subset of plasma membrane (PM) ARFs, which will be identified by two properties: interferon (IFN) induction and virally-induced downregulation. For this I will employ tandem mass tag-based MS3 mass spectrometry, enabling quantitation of PM proteins in primary leukocytes. Key Goals: 1. Use IFNs and infection with two important human pathogens, human cytomegalovirus and HIV as a functional screen to identify novel cell surface ARFs 2. Investigate how these ARFs inhibit viral infection, and how are they targeted for destruction by viruses. The use of IFN as part of the functional screen will additionally enable exploration of the difference in effects between IFNalpha, beta and lambda at the PM, a subject which is currently surprisingly poorly understood. This will provide important insights into human immunity in its own right. Understanding how viruses interacts with and targets ARFs for destruction will have important implications for therapy.