Work

The cell death regulator c-FLIPR impairs natural killer cell responses during influenza a virus infection

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death, is crucial for keeping homeostasis during and after infections. Cellular FLICE-inhibitory protein (c-FLIP) is an inhibitor of death receptor-mediated apoptosis, of which three isoforms have been characterized so far. While the isoforms c-FLIP long and c-FLIP short are well characterized, the function of c-FLIP R remains poorly understood. To study the role of c-FLIP R in influenza A virus (IAV) infection, we employed vavFLIP R transgenic mice that constitutively express murine c-FLIP R in all hematopoietic cells. Upon IAV challenge, vavFLIP R mice showed an altered viral dynamic with a higher load than wild-type mice coinciding with a higher number of Natural Killer (NK) cells. IAV directly infected murine NK cells, but viral particles produced by NK cells did not infect other target cells. While NK cells from vavFLIP R and control mice were equally able to kill tumor cells in vitro , we detected reduced degranulation of c-FLIP R transgenic NK cells from infected mice compared to wildtype counterparts. We conclude that c-FLIP R impairs NK cell activity during IAV infection.

Source: Journal of Molecular Medicine

DOI: 10.1007/s00109-025-02627-9