Unique among human viruses, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) encodes several homologs of cellular interferon regulatory factors (vIRFs). Since KSHV expresses multiple factors that can inhibit interferon (IFN) signaling to promote virus production, it is still unclear to what extent vIRFs contribute to these specific processes during KSHV infection. To study the function of vIRFs during viral infection, we engineered 3xFLAG-tagged-vIRF and vIRF-knockout recombinant KSHV clones, which were utilized to test vIRF expression, as well as their requirement for viral replication, virus production, and inhibition of the type I IFN pathway in different models of lytic KSHV infection. Our data show that all vIRFs can be expressed as lytic viral proteins, yet were dispensable for KSHV production and inhibition of type I IFN. Nevertheless, as vIRFs were able to suppress IFN-stimulated antiviral genes, vIRFs may still promote the KSHV lytic cycle in the presence of an ongoing antiviral response.

中文翻译：

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比较分析 KSHV 的病毒干扰素调节因子对病毒产生和抑制 I 型干扰素途径的必要性。

在人类病毒中独一无二，卡波西肉瘤相关疱疹病毒 (KSHV) 编码细胞干扰素调节因子 (vIRF) 的几种同源物。由于 KSHV 表达可以抑制干扰素 (IFN) 信号传导以促进病毒产生的多种因子，因此尚不清楚在 KSHV 感染期间 vIRF 在多大程度上有助于这些特定过程。为了研究病毒感染期间 vIRF 的功能，我们设计了 3xFLAG 标记的 vIRF 和 vIRF 敲除重组 KSHV 克隆，用于测试 vIRF 表达，以及它们对病毒复制、病毒产生和抑制类型的要求不同溶解性 KSHV 感染模型中的 I IFN 途径。我们的数据表明，所有的 vIRF 都可以表达为裂解病毒蛋白，但对于 KSHV 的产生和 I 型 IFN 的抑制是可有可无的。尽管如此，