• Simin Zhao, Baisong Zheng, Liuli Wang, Wenzhe Cui, Chunlai Jiang, Zhuo Li, Wenying Gao, and Wenyan Zhang.
• Center for Pathogen Biology and Infectious Diseases, Institute of Virology and AIDS Research, Key Laboratory of Organ Regeneration and Transplantation of The Ministry of Education, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130021, China.
• Chin. Med. J. 2022 Nov 20; 135 (22): 270627172706-2717.

BackgroundUbiquitination plays an essential role in many biological processes, including viral infection, and can be reversed by deubiquitinating enzymes (DUBs). Although some studies discovered that DUBs inhibit or enhance viral infection by various mechanisms, there is lack of information on the role of DUBs in virus regulation, which needs to be further investigated.MethodsImmunoblotting, real-time polymerase chain reaction, in vivo / in vitro deubiquitination, protein immunoprecipitation, immunofluorescence, and co-localization biological techniques were employed to examine the effect of ubiquitin-specific protease 3 (USP3) on APOBEC3G (A3G) stability and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) replication. To analyse the relationship between USP3 and HIV disease progression, we recruited 20 HIV-infected patients to detect the levels of USP3 and A3G in peripheral blood and analysed their correlation with CD4 + T-cell counts. Correlation was estimated by Pearson correlation coefficients (for parametric data).ResultsThe results demonstrated that USP3 specifically inhibits HIV-1 replication in an A3G-dependent manner. Further investigation found that USP3 stabilized 90% to 95% of A3G expression by deubiquitinating Vif-mediated polyubiquitination and blocking its degradation in an enzyme-dependent manner. It also enhances the A3G messenger RNA (mRNA) level by binding to A3G mRNA and stabilizing it in an enzyme-independent manner. Moreover, USP3 expression was positively correlated with A3G expression ( r  = 0.5110) and CD4 + T-cell counts ( r  = 0.5083) in HIV-1-infected patients.ConclusionsUSP3 restricts HIV-1 viral infections by increasing the expression of the antiviral factor A3G. Therefore, USP3 may be an important target for drug development and serve as a novel therapeutic strategy against viral infections.Copyright © 2022 The Chinese Medical Association, produced by Wolters Kluwer, Inc. under the CC-BY-NC-ND license.

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