tenOever LaboratoryVirology · Host defense · RNA biology
Technologies

Bulk RNA sequencing

transcriptomics and epigenomics

Recorded terms: bulk mRNA sequencing; bulk RNA sequencing; messenger RNA sequencing; mRNA deep sequencing; mRNA sequencing; ribosomal RNA-depleted total RNA sequencing; RNA sequencing

2025 · Cell Host & Microbe · collaborative

Transcriptional repressor Capicua is a gatekeeper of cell-intrinsic interferon responses

The Capicua and ATXN1L repressor complex binds an eight-nucleotide motif at interferon and interferon-stimulated gene loci to hold them repressed during homeostasis in human and mouse cells, and is degraded through EGFR-MAPK signaling early in respiratory viral entry, which relieves that repression.

2023 · Journal of Virology · lab-led

ADAR1 Biology Can Hinder Effective Antiviral RNA Interference

Escape of a microRNA-targeted Sendai virus from engineered antiviral RNA interference comes not from the virus but from host ADAR1, whose adenosine to inosine editing destroys the target sites, and human ADAR1 also suppresses endogenous silencing in a plant.

2023 · Journal of Virology · lab-led

Archaeal Kink-Turn Binding Protein Mediates Inhibition of Orthomyxovirus Splicing Biology

Archaeal members of the L30 protein family, but not their orthologues from any other domain of life, block production of the spliced influenza A virus, influenza B virus and isavirus transcripts without measurably disturbing host splicing, identifying a shared and apparently noncanonical feature of orthomyxovirus splicing.

2023 · Science Signaling · lab-led

Delayed engagement of host defenses enables SARS-CoV-2 viremia and productive infection of distal organs in the hamster model of COVID-19

In golden hamsters, productive SARS-CoV-2 replication in the airways generates circulating type I and III interferon that primes every organ against infection, and blunting or bypassing that airway response permits viremia and productive infection of liver, kidney, spleen and brain.

2023 · Nature · collaborative

Mouse genome rewriting and tailoring of three important disease loci

An iterative, scarless and biallelic method for overwriting large mammalian genomic segments in mouse embryonic stem cells, used to build a recoded Trp53 locus and mice carrying the human ACE2 and TMPRSS2 loci in place of their mouse counterparts.

2023 · Science Signaling · co-led

SARS-CoV-2 airway infection results in the development of somatosensory abnormalities in a hamster model

Intranasal SARS-CoV-2 infection of golden hamsters deposits viral RNA without infectious virus in dorsal root ganglia and spinal cord, producing a milder but longer-lasting mechanical hypersensitivity than influenza A virus and a neuropathic dorsal root ganglion transcriptome at 31 days, from which ILF3 emerges as an analgesic target validated in mouse pain models.

2023 · Molecular Cell · collaborative

Stress granules are shock absorbers that prevent excessive innate immune responses to dsRNA

Stress granules restrain rather than amplify double-stranded RNA sensing, and cells lacking the granule nucleators G3BP1 and G3BP2, UBAP2L or PKR respond to double-stranded RNA with excessive RIG-I-like receptor, PKR and OAS activation and MAVS-dependent apoptosis.

2022 · Cell Reports · lab-led

A diminished immune response underlies age-related SARS-CoV-2 pathologies

Comparison of young and older golden hamsters infected with SARS-CoV-2 shows that age reduces the magnitude and duration of the innate response and of tissue repair, expands suppressor T cells and IL-17-driven neutrophil recruitment, and lowers germinal centre B cell frequency and neutralizing antibody potency without raising lung virus titres.

2022 · Cell · co-led

Non-cell-autonomous disruption of nuclear architecture as a potential cause of COVID-19-induced anosmia

SARS-CoV-2 infection of the olfactory epithelium reorganizes the nuclear architecture of uninfected olfactory sensory neurons, dissipating the interchromosomal compartments that hold olfactory receptor genes and suppressing receptor and signal transduction transcription in both hamsters and human autopsy tissue.

2022 · Science Translational Medicine · co-led

SARS-CoV-2 infection in hamsters and humans results in lasting and unique systemic perturbations after recovery

Benchmarked against pandemic influenza in golden hamsters, SARS-CoV-2 uniquely sustains interferon signaling, chemokine production and myeloid activation in olfactory bulb and epithelium a month after clearance, alongside altered behavior and matching signatures in recovered human olfactory tissue.

2022 · Journal of Virology · lab-led

The Host Response to Influenza A Virus Interferes with SARS-CoV-2 Replication during Coinfection

In golden hamsters, influenza A virus infection reduces SARS-CoV-2 replication during coinfection, after preinfection, and even one to two weeks after influenza has been cleared, while SARS-CoV-2 leaves influenza replication in vivo unchanged.

2021 · Nature Biomedical Engineering · collaborative

A human-airway-on-a-chip for the rapid identification of candidate antiviral therapeutics and prophylactics

A microfluidic bronchial airway chip lined with differentiated human airway epithelium and pulmonary endothelium reproduces strain-dependent influenza virulence, cytokine output and neutrophil recruitment, and when drugs are delivered at clinically achievable blood concentrations under flow it separates candidates that work in cell lines from those that also work in hamsters challenged with SARS-CoV-2.

2021 · Cell · co-led

Identification of Required Host Factors for SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Human Cells

A genome-scale CRISPR loss-of-function screen in ACE2-expressing human alveolar epithelial cells ranks every protein-coding gene by the effect of its loss on SARS-CoV-2 infection, converging on endosomal machinery, and links several top hits to increased cholesterol biosynthesis and, for RAB7A, to intracellular sequestration of ACE2.

2021 · Science Immunology · lab-led

Immune memory from SARS-CoV-2 infection in hamsters provides variant-independent protection but still allows virus transmission

Longitudinal tracking of antigen-specific lymphocytes in golden hamsters shows that memory from the founder strain of SARS-CoV-2 clears a beta variant rechallenge and that transferred memory T cells alone lower viral load, yet protected animals still infected every cohoused naive partner.

2021 · Immunity · lab-led

Leveraging the antiviral type I interferon system as a first line of defense against SARS-CoV-2 pathogenicity

Longitudinal transcriptional and histological profiling of SARS-CoV-2 infected golden hamsters maps a wave of inflammation that reaches tissues with little or no productive replication, and shows that intranasal type I interferon given before or after challenge lowers viral load and disease burden.

2021 · Journal of Virology · lab-led

Reduced Nucleoprotein Availability Impairs Negative-Sense RNA Virus Replication and Promotes Host Recognition

Restricting nucleoprotein availability in negative-sense RNA virus infections both blocks full-length genome replication and increases production of aberrant replication products that are sensed through RIG-I and MAVS, so a strong interferon response accompanies rather than follows successful infection.

2021 · Cell Stem Cell · co-led

SARS-CoV-2 infects human adult donor eyes and hESC-derived ocular epithelium

Human ocular surface tissue carries SARS-CoV-2 entry machinery and supports productive replication, with the limbus most permissive in both adult donor cells and stem cell derived whole-eye cultures, where infection drives NF-kB chemokine induction and blunted interferon signaling.

2021 · Journal of Virology · lab-led

The NF-κB Transcriptional Footprint Is Essential for SARS-CoV-2 Replication

SARS-CoV-2 infection of human lung epithelial cells engages NF-κB at chromatin, transcriptional, protein and post-translational levels without engaging the type I interferon transcription factors, and loss of p65 or p50 abolishes viral replication in a manner rescued by reconstituting RelA transcriptional activity.

2020 · Cell Stem Cell · collaborative

A Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-based Platform to Study SARS-CoV-2 Tropism and Model Virus Infection in Human Cells and Organoids

A panel of eight human pluripotent stem cell derivatives spanning all three germ layers, together with adult primary islets and liver organoids, identifies pancreatic alpha and beta cells, hepatocytes, cholangiocytes, cardiomyocytes and dopaminergic neurons as permissive to SARS-CoV-2 and shows that permissiveness does not track ACE2 expression alone.

2020 · Cell · lab-led

Imbalanced Host Response to SARS-CoV-2 Drives Development of COVID-19

Across cell lines, primary bronchial epithelium, ferrets and patient material, SARS-CoV-2 infection produces a transcriptional response distinguishable from that to other respiratory viruses, combining low type I and type III interferon induction with a moderate interferon-stimulated gene response and strong chemokine and IL-6 expression.

2019 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · lab-led

Type I interferon response impairs differentiation potential of pluripotent stem cells

Forcing an interferon-stimulated gene program in human induced pluripotent stem cells with a constitutively active IRF7 produces lasting transcriptional change and impaired germ layer differentiation, supporting the proposal that the canonical type I interferon system and pluripotency are difficult to hold simultaneously.

2018 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · lab-led

miRNA-mediated targeting of human cytomegalovirus reveals biological host and viral targets of IE2

A one-step recombineering strategy that inserts hematopoietic-specific miR-142 target sites into the untranslated region of the human cytomegalovirus IE2 transcript permits virus rescue in fibroblasts while silencing IE2 selectively in myeloid cells, revealing that IE2 loss raises rather than abolishes replication in macrophages.

2017 · Nature · lab-led

RNase III nucleases from diverse kingdoms serve as antiviral effectors

RNase III nucleases, including human Drosha and homologues from bacteria, archaea, yeast and a urochordate, restrict positive-strand RNA viruses by recognizing unbranched RNA stem loops and impairing the viral polymerase, separably from microRNA biogenesis, catalysis and interferon.

2015 · Cell Reports · lab-led

Engineered Mammalian RNAi Can Elicit Antiviral Protection that Negates the Requirement for the Interferon Response

Recreating a small RNA antiviral response in mice, using either host microRNAs repurposed as virus-specific guides or a virus-encoded artificial small interfering RNA, attenuates influenza A virus by more than five logs and prevents disease without any requirement for type I interferon signaling.

2015 · Cell Reports · lab-led

In Vivo RNAi Screening Identifies MDA5 as a Significant Contributor to the Cellular Defense against Influenza A Virus

An attenuated influenza A virus engineered to deliver individual artificial small interfering RNAs enables a fitness-based loss-of-function screen inside an infected mouse, and that screen identifies MDA5 as a contributor to the antiviral response to influenza A virus despite the established role of RIG-I as the sensor that induces interferon beta.

2015 · Cell Host & Microbe · lab-led

microRNA Function Is Limited to Cytokine Control in the Acute Response to Virus Infection

Rapid vector-delivered destruction of the entire cellular microRNA population shows that post-transcriptional silencing makes no measurable contribution to the acute transcriptional response to double-stranded RNA or to type I interferon, while sustained loss of microRNAs derepresses a broad set of chemokines and proinflammatory cytokines in fibroblasts and in mouse lung.

2014 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · lab-led

Drosha as an interferon-independent antiviral factor

Loss of the nuclear RNase III enzyme Drosha, but not of Dicer, increases RNA virus replication in mammalian fibroblasts, and diverse RNA viruses drive Drosha into the cytoplasm by CRM1-dependent export in a manner that does not require new protein synthesis, RIG-I, TBK1 or type I interferon signaling.

2014 · Journal of Experimental Medicine · co-led

Long-term survival of influenza virus infected club cells drives immunopathology

A Cre recombinase-expressing influenza A virus combined with Cre-responsive reporter and ablation mouse strains showed that a subpopulation of directly infected lung cells, predominantly club cells, survives productive infection, sustains elevated interferon-stimulated gene and chemokine expression, and contributes to bronchiolar epithelial damage after virus is cleared.

2014 · Journal of Biological Chemistry · lab-led

Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase-mediated Licensing of Interferon Regulatory Factor 3/7 Reinforces the Cell Response to Virus

Sustained IRF7 activity induces the kinase MAP3K8, which phosphorylates the proline-rich hinge of IRF3 and redirects it from homodimers into IRF3 and IRF7 heterodimers, broadening the antiviral transcriptome and scaling the cellular response to the persistence of the viral threat.

2014 · Cell Reports · lab-led

The Mammalian Response to Virus Infection Is Independent of Small RNA Silencing

Engineering vesicular stomatitis virus to eliminate RISC-loaded small RNAs attenuates rather than enhances replication in mice, and confers no replication advantage even when interferon signaling is removed, arguing that small RNA silencing does not contribute to mammalian antiviral defense.

2013 · Cell Host & Microbe · lab-led

An In Vivo RNAi Screening Approach to Identify Host Determinants of Virus Replication

Replication-competent Sindbis viruses, each encoding an artificial microRNA against one murine open reading frame, turn viral fitness in infected mice into a selection-based screen for host restriction factors, identifying the transcription factors Zfx and Mga as maintainers of antiviral capacity.

2011 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · co-led

IκB kinase ε (IKKε) regulates the balance between type I and type II interferon responses

Phosphorylation of STAT1 serine 708 by IKKε blocks formation of the STAT1 homodimer that constitutes GAF while leaving the STAT1 and STAT2 heterodimer of ISGF3 intact, biasing the shared STAT1 pool and the interferon-stimulated transcriptome toward the type I response.