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Review
. 2019 Jul 18;17(1):59.
doi: 10.1186/s12915-019-0678-9.

Viral hijacking of cellular metabolism

Shivani K Thaker  1 , James Ch'ng  2 , Heather R Christofk  3   4   5
Affiliations
Review

Viral hijacking of cellular metabolism

Shivani K Thaker et al. BMC Biol. .

Abstract

This review discusses the current state of the viral metabolism field and gaps in knowledge that will be important for future studies to investigate. We discuss metabolic rewiring caused by viruses, the influence of oncogenic viruses on host cell metabolism, and the use of viruses as guides to identify critical metabolic nodes for cancer anabolism. We also discuss the need for more mechanistic studies identifying viral proteins responsible for metabolic hijacking and for in vivo studies of viral-induced metabolic rewiring. Improved technologies for detailed metabolic measurements and genetic manipulation will lead to important discoveries over the next decade.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Metabolic pathways altered by virus infection. Figure includes alterations demonstrated by changes in metabolite levels, flux, and tracing. *Herpesvirus family; #Flavivirus family; &virus downregulates this metabolic activity; @KSHV upregulates lipid synthesis but downregulates cholesterol synthesis. Created with BioRender.com
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Non-oncogenic viruses and metabolic alterations in host cells during infection
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Metabolic reprogramming by oncogenic viruses
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Comparison of a cell infected with wild-type adenovirus and a cancer cell. While cancer cells have numerous mutations and perturbation of whole metabolic pathways (green), adenovirus-infected cells upregulate only key metabolic nodes for virion replication
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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