RNA-Seq analysis reveals that spring viraemia of carp virus induces a broad spectrum of PIM kinases in zebrafish kidney that promote viral entry.

PIM kinases are a family of serine/threonine protein kinases that potentiate the progression of the cell cycle and inhibit apoptosis. Because of this, they are considered to be proto-oncogenes, and they represent an interesting target for the development of anticancer drugs. In mammals, three PIM kinases exist (PIM-1, PIM-2 and PIM-3), and different inhibitors have been developed to block their activity. In addition to their involvement in cancer, some publications have reported that the PIM kinases have pro-viral activity, and different mechanisms where PIM kinases favour viral infections have been proposed. Zebrafish possess more than 300 Pim kinase members in their genome, and by using RNA-Seq analysis, we found a high number of Pim kinase genes that were significantly induced after infection with spring viraemia of carp virus (SVCV). Moreover, analysis of the miRNAs modulated by this infection revealed that some of them could be involved in the post-transcriptional regulation of Pim kinase abundance. To elucidate the potential role of the 16 overexpressed Pim kinases in the infectivity of SVCV, we used three different pan-PIM kinase inhibitors (SGI-1776, INCB053914 and AZD1208), and different experiments were conducted both in vitro and in vivo. We observed that the PIM kinase inhibitors had a protective effect against SVCV, indicating that, similar to what is observed in mammals, PIM kinases are beneficial for the virus in zebrafish. Moreover, zebrafish Pim kinases seem to facilitate viral entry into the host cells because when ZF4 cells were pre-incubated with the virus and then were treated with the inhibitors, the protective effect of the inhibitors was abrogated. Although more investigation is necessary, these results show that pan-PIM kinase inhibitors could serve as a useful treatment for preventing the spread of viral diseases.

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