RESUMO
Human transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causative pathogen of the COVID-19 pandemic, exerts a massive health and socioeconomic crisis. The virus infects alveolar epithelial type 2 cells (AT2s), leading to lung injury and impaired gas exchange, but the mechanisms driving infection and pathology are unclear. We performed a quantitative phosphoproteomic survey of induced pluripotent stem cell-derived AT2s (iAT2s) infected with SARS-CoV-2 at air-liquid interface (ALI). Time course analysis revealed rapid remodeling of diverse host systems, including signaling, RNA processing, translation, metabolism, nuclear integrity, protein trafficking, and cytoskeletal-microtubule organization, leading to cell cycle arrest, genotoxic stress, and innate immunity. Comparison to analogous data from transformed cell lines revealed respiratory-specific processes hijacked by SARS-CoV-2, highlighting potential novel therapeutic avenues that were validated by a high hit rate in a targeted small molecule screen in our iAT2 ALI system.
Assuntos
Células Epiteliais Alveolares/metabolismo , COVID-19/metabolismo , Fosfoproteínas/metabolismo , Proteoma/metabolismo , SARS-CoV-2/metabolismo , Células Epiteliais Alveolares/patologia , Células Epiteliais Alveolares/virologia , Animais , Antivirais , COVID-19/genética , COVID-19/patologia , Chlorocebus aethiops , Efeito Citopatogênico Viral , Citoesqueleto , Avaliação Pré-Clínica de Medicamentos , Humanos , Células-Tronco Pluripotentes Induzidas/metabolismo , Células-Tronco Pluripotentes Induzidas/patologia , Células-Tronco Pluripotentes Induzidas/virologia , Fosfoproteínas/genética , Transporte Proteico , Proteoma/genética , SARS-CoV-2/genética , Transdução de Sinais , Células Vero , Tratamento Farmacológico da COVID-19RESUMO
In screening a library of natural and synthetic products for eukaryotic translation modulators, we identified two natural products, isohymenialdisine and hymenialdisine, that exhibit stimulatory effects on translation. The characterization of these compounds led to the insight that mRNA used to program the translation extracts during high-throughput assay setup was leading to phosphorylation of eIF2α, a potent negative regulatory event that is mediated by one of four kinases. We identified double-stranded RNA-dependent protein kinase (PKR) as the eIF2α kinase that was being activated by exogenously added mRNA template. Characterization of the mode of action of isohymenialdisine revealed that it directly acts on PKR by inhibiting autophosphorylation, perturbs the PKR-eIF2α phosphorylation axis, and can be modeled into the PKR ATP binding site. Our results identify a source of "false positives" for high-throughput screen campaigns using translation extracts, raising a cautionary note for this type of screen.