Duck Enteritis Virus VP16 Antagonizes IFN-β-Mediated Antiviral Innate Immunity

Duck enteritis virus (DEV) can successfully evade the host innate immune responses and establish a lifelong latent infection in the infected host. However, the study about how DEV escapes host innate immunity is still deficient up to now. In this study, for the first time, we identified a viral protein VP16 by which DEV can obviously downregulate the production of IFN-β in duck embryo fibroblast (DEF). Our results showed that ectopic expression of VP16 decreased duck IFN-β (duIFN-β) promoter activation and significantly inhibited the mRNA transcription of IFN-β. Further study showed that VP16 can also obviously inhibit the mRNA transcription of interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), such as myxovirus resistance protein (Mx) and interferon-induced oligoadenylate synthetase-like (OASL). Furthermore, we found that this anti-interferon activity of VP16 depended on its N-terminus (aa1-200). Coexpression analysis revealed that VP16 selectively blocked duIFN-β promoter activity at the duIRF7 level rather than duIRF1. Based on the results of coimmunoprecipitation analysis (co-IP) and indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA), VP16 was able to bind to duck IRF7 (duIRF7) directly, but did not interact with duck IRF1 (duIRF1) in vitro.