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Updated: Aug 8, 2025

Dissecting Innate Immune Signaling in Viral Evasion of Cytokine Production
Published on: March 2, 2014
The Role of Cluster of Differentiation 39 (CD39) and Purinergic Signaling Pathway in Viral Infections
Alaa Elsaghir1, Ehsan M W El-Sabaa1, Abdulrahman K Ahmed2
1Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut 71515, Egypt.
Abstract:
CD39 is a marker of immune cells such as lymphocytes and monocytes. The CD39/CD73 pathway hydrolyzes ATP into adenosine, which has a potent immunosuppressive effect. CD39 regulates the function of a variety of immunologic cells through the purinergic signaling pathways. CD39+ T cells have been implicated in viral infections, including Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Cytomegalovirus (CMV), viral hepatitis, and Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections. The expression of CD39 is an indicator of lymphocyte exhaustion, which develops during chronicity. During RNA viral infections, the CD39 marker can profile the populations of CD4+ T lymphocytes into two populations, T-effector lymphocytes, and T-regulatory lymphocytes, where CD39 is predominantly expressed on the T-regulatory cells. The level of CD39 in T lymphocytes can predict the disease progression, antiviral immune responses, and the response to antiviral drugs. Besides, the percentage of CD39 and CD73 in B lymphocytes and monocytes can affect the status of viral infections. In this review, we investigate the impact of CD39 and CD39-expressing cells on viral infections and how the frequency and percentage of CD39+ immunologic cells determine disease prognosis.
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