Vaccinia virus-induced microtubule-dependent cellular rearrangements

Although infection with vaccinia virus (VV) is known to affect the cytoskeleton, it is not known how this affects the cellular architecture or whether the attenuated modified VV ankara (MVA) behaves similar to wild-type VV (wtVV). In the present study, we therefore compared effects of wtVV and MVA infection on the cellular architecture. WtVV-infection induces cell rounding early in infection, which coincides with the retraction of microtubules (MTs) and intermediate filaments from the cellular periphery, whereas mitochondria and late endosomes cluster around the nucleus. Nocodazole treatment demonstrates that cell rounding and organelle clustering require intact MTs. At the onset of virus assembly late in infection, cells reflatten, a process that coincides with the regrowth of MTs into the cellular periphery. We find that the actin network undergoes several rearrangements that occur sequentially in time and that closely follow the cell-shape changes. Unexpectedly, these actin changes are blocked or reversed upon nocodazole treatment, indicating that intact MTs are also responsible for the wtVV-induced actin rearrangements. Finally, MVA infection does not induce any of these cellular changes. Because this virus lacks a substantial number of VV genes, MVA opens up a system to search for the molecules involved in wtVV-induced cellular changes; in particular, those that may regulate actin/MT interactions.