Noncytotoxic inhibition of cytomegalovirus replication through NK cell protease granzyme M-mediated cleavage of viral phosphoprotein 71.

Granzyme M (GrM) is highly expressed in cytotoxic granules of NK cells, which provide the first line of defense against viral pathogens. GrM knockout mice show increased susceptibility toward murine CMV infection. Although GrM is a potent inducer of cell death, the mechanism by which GrM eliminates viruses remains elusive. In this paper, we show that purified human GrM in combination with the perforin-analog streptolysin O (SLO) strongly inhibited human CMV (HCMV) replication in fibroblasts in the absence of host cell death. In a proteomic approach, GrM was highly specific toward the HCMV proteome and most efficiently cleaved phosphoprotein 71 (pp71), an HCMV tegument protein that is critical for viral replication. Cleavage of pp71 occurred when viral lysates were incubated with purified GrM, when intact cells expressing recombinant pp71 were challenged with living cytotoxic effector cells, and when HCMV-infected fibroblasts were incubated with SLO and purified GrM. GrM directly cleaved pp71 after Leu(439), which coincided with aberrant cellular localization of both pp71 cleavage fragments as determined by confocal immunofluorescence. In a luciferase reporter assay, cleavage of pp71 after Leu(439) by GrM completely abolished the ability of pp71 to transactivate the HCMV major immediate-early promoter, which is indispensable for effective HCMV replication. Finally, GrM decreased immediate-early 1 protein expression in HCMV-infected fibroblasts. These results indicate that the NK cell protease GrM mediates cell death-independent antiviral activity by direct cleavage of a viral substrate.