Members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor superfamily and their activating ligands transmit apoptotic signals in a variety of systems. We now show that the binding of TNF-related, apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) to its cellular receptors DR5 (TRAILR2) and DR4 (TRAILR1) mediates reovirus-induced apoptosis. Anti-TRAIL antibody and soluble TRAIL receptors block reovirus-induced apoptosis by preventing TRAIL-receptor binding. In addition, reovirus induces both TRAIL release and an increase in the expression of DR5 and DR4 in infected cells. Reovirus-induced apoptosis is also blocked following inhibition of the death receptor-associated, apoptosis-inducing molecules FADD (for FAS-associated death domain) and caspase 8. We propose that reovirus infection promotes apoptosis via the expression of DR5 and the release of TRAIL from infected cells. Virus-induced regulation of the TRAIL apoptotic pathway defines a novel mechanism for virus-induced apoptosis.

Viral infection often perturbs host cell signaling pathways including those involving mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs). We now show that reovirus infection results in the selective activation of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK). Reovirus-induced JNK activation is associated with an increase in the phosphorylation of the JNK-dependent transcription factor c-Jun. Reovirus serotype 3 prototype strains Abney (T3A) and Dearing (T3D) induce significantly more JNK activation and c-Jun phosphorylation than does the serotype 1 prototypic strain Lang (T1L). T3D and T3A also induce more apoptosis in infected cells than T1L, and there was a significant correlation between the ability of these viruses to phosphorylate c-Jun and induce apoptosis. However, reovirus-induced apoptosis, but not reovirus-induced c-Jun phosphorylation, is inhibited by blocking TRAIL/receptor binding, suggesting that apoptosis and c-Jun phosphorylation involve parallel rather than identical pathways. Strain-specific differences in JNK activation are determined by the reovirus S1 and M2 gene segments, which encode viral outer capsid proteins (1 and 1c) involved in receptor binding and host cell membrane penetration. These same gene segments also determine differences in the capacity of reovirus strains to induce apoptosis, and again a significant correlation between the capacity of T1L ؋ T3D reassortant reoviruses to both activate JNK and phosphorylate c-Jun and to induce apoptosis was shown. The extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) is also activated in a strain-specific manner following reovirus infection. Unlike JNK activation, ERK activation could not be mapped to specific reovirus gene segments, suggesting that ERK activation and JNK activation are triggered by different events during virus-host cell interaction.

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Experimental infection with mammalian reoviruses has provided a classic model of viral pathogenesis (for review, see Ref.

Reoviruses are a leading model for understanding cellular mechanisms of virus-induced apoptosis. Reoviruses induce apoptosis in multiple cell lines in vitro, and apoptosis plays a key role in virus-induced tissue injury of the heart and brain in vivo. The activation of transcription factors NF-B and c-Jun are key events in reovirus-induced apoptosis, indicating that new gene expression is critical to this process. We used highdensity oligonucleotide microarrays to analyze cellular transcriptional alterations in HEK293 cells after infection with reovirus strain T3A (i.e., apoptosis inducing) compared to infection with reovirus strain T1L (i.e., minimally apoptosis inducing) and uninfected cells. These strains also differ dramatically in their potential to induce apoptotic injury in hearts of infected mice in vivo-T3A is myocarditic, whereas T1L is not. Using high-throughput microarray analysis of over 12,000 genes, we identified differential expression of a defined subset of genes involved in apoptosis and DNA repair after reovirus infection. This provides the first comparative analysis of altered gene expression after infection with viruses of differing apoptotic phenotypes and provides insight into pathogenic mechanisms of virus-induced disease.

Virus-induced activation of nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) is required for Type 3 (T3) reovirusinduced apoptosis. We now show that NF-κB is also activated by the prototypic Type 1 reovirus strain Lang (T1L), which induces significantly less apoptosis than T3 viruses, indicating that NF-κB activation alone is not sufficient for apoptosis in reovirus-infected cells. A second phase of virusinduced NF-κB regulation, where NF-κB activation is inhibited at later times following infection with T3 Abney (T3A), is absent in T1L-infected cells. This suggests that inhibition of NF-κB activation at later times post infection also contributes to reovirus-induced apoptosis. Reovirusinduced inhibition of stimulus-induced activation of NF-κB is significantly associated with apoptosis following infection of HEK293 cells with reassortant reoviruses and is determined by the T3 S1 gene segment, which is also the primary determinant of reovirus-induced apoptosis. Inhibition of stimulusinduced activation of NF-κB also occurs following infection of primary cardiac myocytes with apoptotic (8B) but not non-apoptotic (T1L) reoviruses. Expression levels of the NF-κB-regulated cellular FLICE inhibitory protein (cFLIP) reflect NF-κB activation in reovirus-infected cells. Further, inhibition of NF-κB activity and cFLIP expression promote T1L-induced apoptosis. These results demonstrate that inhibition of stimulus-induced activation of NF-κB and the resulting decrease in cFLIP expression promote reovirus-induced apoptosis.