Novel type II transmembrane serine proteases, MSPL and TMPRSS13, Proteolytically activate membrane fusion activity of the hemagglutinin of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and induce their multicycle replication.

Host cellular proteases induce influenza virus entry into cells by cleaving the viral surface envelope glycoprotein hemagglutinin (HA). However, details on the cellular proteases involved in this event are not fully available. We report here that ubiquitous type II transmembrane serine proteases, MSPL and its splice variant TMPRSS13, are novel candidates for proteases processing HA proteins of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses, apart from the previously identified furin and proprotein convertases 5 and 6. HAs from all HPAI virus H5 and H7 strains have one of two cleavage site motifs, the R-X-K/R-R motif with R at position P4 and the K-K/R-K/T-R motif with K at position P4. In studies of synthetic 14-residue HPAI virus HA peptides with these cleavage site motifs, furin preferentially cleaved only HA peptides with the R-K-K-R motif in the presence of calcium and not peptides with the other motif, whereas MSPL and TMPRSS13 cleaved both types of HA peptides (those with the R/K-K-K-R motif) efficiently in the absence of calcium. Full-length recombinant HPAI virus HA with the K-K-K-R cleavage motif exhibited poor susceptibility to cleavage in the absence of MSPL or TMPRSS13 and the presence of furin in infected cells, but it was converted to mature HA subunits in transfected cells expressing MSPL or TMPRSS13, with membrane-fused giant-cell formation. This conversion and membrane fusion were suppressed by inhibitors of MSPL and TMPRSS13. Furthermore, infection with and multiplication of genetically modified live HPAI virus A/Crow/Kyoto/53/2004 (H5N1) with the K-K-K-R cleavage site motif were detected only in MSPL- and TMPRSS13-expressing cells.

MDCK cells that express proteases TMPRSS2 and HAT provide a cell system to propagate influenza viruses in the absence of trypsin and to study cleavage of HA and its inhibition.

Cleavage of the influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) by host cell proteases is essential for virus infectivity and, therefore, relevant proteases may present promising new drug targets. We recently demonstrated that serine proteases TMPRSS2 and HAT from human airways activate influenza virus HA with monobasic cleavage site in vitro. In the present study we generated MDCK cells with inducible expression of either TMPRSS2 or HAT. MDCK-TMPRSS2 and MDCK-HAT cells supported growth of human and avian influenza viruses of different subtypes in the absence of exogenous trypsin. Further, we used these cell lines to investigate the efficacy of protease inhibitors to prevent proteolytic activation of HA by TMPRSS2 and HAT. Multicycle viral replication in both cell lines was markedly suppressed in the presence of serine protease inhibitors and we found that particularly in MDCK-HAT cells proteolytic activation of progeny viruses was very susceptible to inhibitor treatment. Taken together, our data demonstrate that MDCK-HAT and MDCK-TMPRSS2 cells are useful experimental systems to study cleavage of HA by host cell protease and its inhibition and in addition represent applicable cell lines to propagate influenza viruses in the absence of trypsin.

Proteolytic activation of influenza viruses by serine proteases TMPRSS2 and HAT from human airway epithelium.

Host cell proteases that cleave the hemagglutinin (HA) of influenza viruses in the human respiratory tract are still not identified. Here we cloned two human type II transmembrane serine proteases with known airway localization, TMPRSS2 and HAT, into mammalian expression vector. Cotransfection of mammalian cells with plasmids encoding HA and either protease resulted in HA cleavage in situ. Transient expression of either protease in MDCK cells enabled multicycle replication of influenza viruses in these cells in the absence of exogenous trypsin. These data suggest that TMPRSS2 and HAT are candidates for proteolytic activation of influenza viruses in vivo.