SLC1A3 facilitates Newcastle disease virus replication by regulating glutamine catabolism

Newcastle disease virus (NDV), a member of the family Paramyxoviridae causes an acute and highly contagious disease mainly affecting chickens and turkeys. The virus causes significant changes in metabolism of amino acids in the host cells, with glutamic acid being the most upregulated followed by aspartic acid. This study also showed that the five Solute carrier family 1 (SLC1) members that are high-affinity glutamate transporters, SLC1A3 was the most significantly upregulated during NDV replication. The use of siRNA knockdown of SLC1A3 resulted in significant reduction in expression of the NDV nucleoprotein and NDV titer in the cells and cell supernatant respectively. This clearly demonstrated that SLC1A3 is indispensable in NDV replication. To determine which amino acids are indispensable for NDV replication, the glucose-enriched growth media were prepared with and without glutamine and the results indicated that NDV only replicates when the amino acid glutamine is present. SLC1A3 promotes glutamine uptake and catabolism, which promotes NDV replication in the infected cells. This experiment shows how NDV hijacks cellular SLC1A3 to its own advantage of replicating.
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