American Society for Microbiology, Journal of Virology, 4(93), 2019
DOI: 10.1128/jvi.01806-18
Full text: Unavailable
A variety of human rheumatologic disease-causing mutations have recently been identified. Some of these mutations are found in viral nucleic acid-sensing proteins, but whether viruses can influence the onset or progression of these human diseases is less well understood. One such autoinflammatory disease, called STING-associated vasculopathy with onset in infancy (SAVI), affects children and leads to severe lung disease. We generated mice with a SAVI-associated STING mutation and infected them with γHV68, a common DNA virus that is related to human Epstein-Barr virus. Mice with the human disease-causing STING mutation were more vulnerable to infection than wild-type littermate control animals. Furthermore, the STING mutant mice developed lung fibrosis similar to that of patients with SAVI. These findings reveal that a human STING mutation creates severe immunodeficiency, leading to virus-induced lung disease in mice.