The role of cell proteins in dengue virus infection

Despite 70 years of study, dengue disease continues to be a global health burden. Treatment is only supportive based on presenting symptoms. To date, there is no licensed prophylactic vaccine and no specific antiviral drugs available. The pathogenesis mechanisms during dengue virus infections remain poorly understood, and the complete picture on risk factors for developing severe clinical illness is still unknown. Viruses as obligate intracellular parasites depend on the host cell machinery for replication. As a result of a co-evolution process for million years, viruses have developed sophisticated strategies to hijack and use cellular factors for entry, replication and propagation, alternate host transmission and to combat host cell defenses. This review focuses on recent reports about cellular proteins involved along the dengue virus replication cycle, in prime cellular targets during the infection of both humans and mosquito hosts and also on the proteomics and other approaches that are being used to reveal the entire orchestration and most significant processes altered during infection. Identification of the key host cell factors involve in these processes will provide a better understanding of how viruses replicate and cause disease, and how to develop more effective therapeutic interventions.

Dengue disease is as a global health problem. The treatment is only supportive based on presenting symptoms. To date, there is no licensed prophylactic vaccine and no specific antiviral drugs available. The study of the interactions between virus and host cell proteins will provide a better understanding of how viruses replicate and cause disease. Here, we focus on the current knowledge about the cellular proteins involved during DENV infection in different target cells in the two hosts, mosquito and human.