Adenovirus early region 3 RIDα protein limits NFκB signaling through stress-activated EGF receptors

The host limits adenovirus infections by mobilizing immune systems directed against infected cells that also represent major barriers to clinical use of adenoviral vectors. Adenovirus early transcription units encode a number of products capable of thwarting antiviral immune responses by co-opting host cell pathways. Although the EGF receptor (EGFR) was a known target for the early region 3 (E3) RIDα protein encoded by nonpathogenic group C adenoviruses, the functional role of this host-pathogen interaction was unknown. Here we report that incoming viral particles triggered a robust, stress-induced pathway of EGFR trafficking and signaling prior to viral gene expression in epithelial target cells. EGFRs activated by stress of adenoviral infection regulated signaling by the NFκB family of transcription factors, which is known to have a critical role in the host innate immune response to infectious adenoviruses and adenovirus vectors. We found that the NFκB p65 subunit was phosphorylated at Thr254, shown previously by other investigators to be associated with enhanced nuclear stability and gene transcription, by a mechanism that was attributable to ligand-independent EGFR tyrosine kinase activity. Our results indicated that the adenoviral RIDα protein terminated this pathway by co-opting the host adaptor protein Alix required for sorting stress-exposed EGFRs in multivesicular endosomes, and promoting endosome-lysosome fusion independent of the small GTPase Rab7, in infected cells. Furthermore RIDα expression was sufficient to down-regulate the same EGFR/NFκB signaling axis in a previously characterized stress-activated EGFR trafficking pathway induced by treatment with the pro-inflammatory cytokine TNF-α. We also found that cell stress activated additional EGFR signaling cascades through the Gab1 adaptor protein that may have unappreciated roles in the adenoviral life cycle. Similar to other E3 proteins, RIDα is not conserved in adenovirus serotypes associated with potentially severe disease, suggesting stress-activated EGFR signaling may contribute to adenovirus virulence.