Abstract
Autophagy and apoptosis, which are important processes for host immunity, are commonly exploited by viruses to facilitate their survival. However, to the best of our knowledge, very few studies have researched the mechanisms of action of the autophagic and apoptotic signaling pathways following viral infection. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the mechanisms of action of growth arrest and DNA-damage-inducible β (GADD45β), an important resistance gene involved in the host resistance to ALV-J. Both ALV-J infection and the overexpression of GADD45β inhibited autophagy during the early stages, which prevented the autophagosomes from binding to the lysosomes and resulted in an incomplete autophagic flux. Notably, GADD45β was discovered to interact with MEKK4 in DF-1 cells. The genetic knockdown of GADD45β and MEKK4 using small interfering RNA-affected ALV-J infection, which suggested that ALV-J may promote the binding of GADD45β to MEKK4 to activate the p38MAPK signaling pathway, which subsequently inhibits autophagy. Furthermore, ALV-J was revealed to affect the autophagic pathway prior to affecting the apoptotic pathway. In conclusion, to the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first to investigate the combined effects of ALV-J infection on autophagy and apoptosis, and to suggest that ALV-J inhibits autophagy via the GADD45β/MEKK4/p38MAPK signaling pathway.