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Updated: May 4, 2026

Dissecting Innate Immune Signaling in Viral Evasion of Cytokine Production
Published on: March 2, 2014
Checks and balances between human cytomegalovirus replication and indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase
Albert Zimmermann1, Sebastian Hauka1, Marco Maywald1
1Institute for Virology, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf 40225, Germany.
Abstract:
Despite a rigorous blockade of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) signalling in infected fibroblasts as a mechanism of immune evasion by human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), IFN-γ induced indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) has been proposed to represent the major antiviral restriction factor limiting HCMV replication in epithelial cells. Here we show that HCMV efficiently blocks transcription of IFN-γ-induced IDO mRNA both in infected fibroblasts and epithelial cells even in the presence of a preexisting IFN-induced antiviral state. This interference results in severe suppression of IDO bioactivity in HCMV-infected cells and restoration of vigorous HCMV replication. Depletion of IDO expression nonetheless substantially alleviated the antiviral impact of IFN-γ treatment in both cell types. These findings highlight the effectiveness of this IFN-γ induced effector gene in restricting HCMV productivity, but also the impact of viral counter-measures.
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