Norovirus-mediated translation repression promotes macrophage cell death

Abstract

Norovirus infection is characterised by a rapid onset of disease and the development of debilitating symptoms including projectile vomiting and diffuse diarrhoea. Vaccines and antivirals are sorely lacking and developments in these areas are hampered by the lack of an adequate cell culture system to investigate human norovirus replication and pathogenesis. Herein, we describe how the model norovirus, Mouse norovirus (MNV), produces a viral protein, NS3, with the functional capacity to attenuate host protein translation which invokes the activation of cell death via apoptosis. We show that this function of NS3 is conserved between human and mouse viruses and map the protein domain attributabl..