TRIM62-mediated restriction of avian leukosis virus subgroup J replication is dependent on the SPRY domain

Emerging evidence suggests that some members of the tripartite motif (TRIM) family play a crucial role in antiretroviral. However, the chicken TRIM62 antiretroviral activity is unknown. Avian leukosis virus subgroup J (ALV-J) is an avian retrovirus mainly inducing tumor formation and immunosuppression. The purpose of the study was to explore chicken TRIM62's role in ALV-J replication. In this study, we first tested the RNA expression of ALV-J and TRIM62 in chicken embryo fibroblasts (CEFs) cells infected with ALV-J by qRT-PCR. The result showed that ALV-J infection affected TRIM62 RNA expression, first upregulation and then downregulation, with the time course infection of ALV-J. Then, we silenced and overexpressed the TRIM62 to evaluate the effect of TRIM62 on ALV-J replication by qRT-PCR. We found that the knockdown of TRIM62 in CEF cells with shRNA targeting SPRY domain enhanced the viral replication more significantly than that with shRNA targeting coiled coil/unstructured domain, and overexpression of TRIM62 inhibited the viral replication. Further, we detected the effect of the domain deletion on TRIM62's antiviral activity. The result demonstrated that deletion of RING, B-box, coiled-coil domains partially abolished TRIM62's antiviral activity, while SPRY domain deletion resulted in the disappearance of antiviral activity of TRIM62. Taken together, our findings strongly suggested that TRIM62 plays an important role in the restriction of ALV-J replication, and SPRY domain is a prerequisite for the antiviral activity of TRIM62.