Non-muscle Myosin II: Role in Microbial Infection and Its Potential as a Therapeutic Target

Abstract

Currently, the major measures of preventing and controlling microbial infection are vaccinations and drugs. However, the appearance of drug resistance microbial mounts is main obstacle in current anti-microbial therapy. One of the most ubiquitous actin-binding proteins, non-muscle myosin II (NM II) plays a crucial role in a wide range of cellular physiological activities in mammals, including cell adhesion, migration, and division. Nowadays, growing evidence indicates that aberrant expression or activity of NM II can be detected in many diseases caused by microbes, including viruses and bacteria. Furthermore, an important role for NM II in the infection of some microbes is verified. Importantly, modulating the expression of NM II with small hairpin RNA (shRNA) or the activity of it by inhibitors can affect microbial-triggered phenotypes. Therefore, NM II holds the promise to be a potential target for inhibiting the infection of microbes and even treating microbial-triggered discords. In spite of these, a comprehensive view on the functions of NM II in microbial infection and the regulators which have an impact on the roles of NM II in this context, is still lacking. In this review, we summarize our current knowledge on the roles of NM II in microbial-triggered discords and provide broad insights into its regulators. In addition, the existing challenge of investigating the multiple roles of NM II in microbial infection and developing NM II inhibitors for treating these microbial-triggered discords, are also discussed.

Current Status and Challenge of Pseudorabies Virus Infection in China

“…Small RNAs including small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) and microRNAs (miRNAs) are widely used to explore gene functions due to their features of targeting mRNA degradation (Tan et al . 2019 ), and also to be useful tools for efficiently inhibiting virus replication and interfering protein synthesis (Du et al . 2009 ; Wong et al .…”

Non-Muscle Myosin 2A (NM2A): Structure, Regulation and Function

“…NM2A was also linked to viral and bacterial infectious diseases: Its depletion often impairs the dissemination of pathogens [ 210 ]. Infection studies demonstrated that pathogens such as Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Listeria monocytogenes target NM2A, inducing its phosphorylation, which is detrimental for cellular invasion [ 75 , 211 ].…”

Potential entry receptors for human γ-herpesvirus into epithelial cells: A plausible therapeutic target for viral infections

“…Heparan sulfate (HS), glutamate/cystine exchange transporter (X-CT), and dendritic cell-specific intercellular adhesion molecule-3-grabbing non-integrin (DC-SIGN) receptors are known to use by KSHV whilst EBV uses neuropilin1 (NRP1) and non-muscle myosin heavy chain IIA (NMHC-IIA) for epithelial cell entry ( Fig. 2 ) [ 4 , 5 , [64] , [65] , [66] ].…”

“…NMHC-IIA: The 250 kDa NMHC-IIA is an actin-binding protein having the properties of actin cross-linking and contraction which is regulated by the light and heavy chains phosphorylation [ 100 ]. The NMHC-IIA played an important role in many viruses’ infection including the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, thrombocytopenia syndrome virus and herpesviruses [ 65 ]. Although, it is mainly located in the cell cytoplasm [ 59 , 64 ].…”