Virion Glycoprotein-Mediated Immune Evasion by Human Cytomegalovirus: a Sticky Virus Makes a Slick Getaway.

ABSTRACT: The prototypic herpesvirus human cytomegalovirus (CMV) exhibits the extraordinary ability to establish latency and maintain a chronic infection throughout the life of its human host. This is even more remarkable considering the robust adaptive immune response elicited by infection and reactivation from latency. In addition to the ability of CMV to exist in a quiescent latent state, its persistence is enabled by a large repertoire of viral proteins that subvert immune defense mechanisms, such as NK cell activation and major histocompatibility complex antigen presentation, within the cell. However, dissemination outside the cell presents a unique existential challenge to the CMV virion, which is studded with antigenic glycoprotein complexes targeted by a potent neutralizing antibody response

SUBMITTER: Gardner TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4981668 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature