Co-option of Membrane Wounding Enables Virus Penetration into Cells Stefania Luisoni 1, 2, Maarit Suomalainen 1, Karin Boucke 1, Lukas B. Tanner 3, 8, Markus R. Wenk 3, Xue Li Guan 4, Michal Grzybek 5,6, Ünal Coskun 5,6 and Urs F. Greber1,7 1 Institute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland 2 Molecular Life Sciences Graduate School, ETH and University of Zurich, CH-8057 Zurich, Switzerland 3 Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 28 Medical Drive, Singapore 117456, Singapore 4 Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse 57, 4051 Basel, and University of Basel, CH-4000 Basel, Switzerland 5 Paul Langerhans Institute Dresden of the Helmholtz Centre Munich at the University Clinic Carl Gustav Carus, TU Dresden, 01307 Dresden, Germany 6 German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.), 85764 Neuherberg, Germany 7 corresponding author: E-mail:
[email protected], Telephone: +41 44 635 48 41, Fax: +41 44 635 68 17 8 present address: Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Washington Road, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Running title: Co-option of Membrane Wounding for Virus Entry 1 Summary During cell entry, non-enveloped viruses undergo partial uncoating to expose membrane-lytic proteins for gaining access to the cytoplasm. We report that adenovirus uses membrane piercing to induce and hijack cellular wound removal processes that facilitate further membrane disruption and infection. Incoming adenovirus stimulates calcium influx and lysosomal exocytosis, a membrane repair mechanism resulting in release of acid sphingomyelinase (ASMase) and degradation of sphingomyelin to ceramide lipids in the plasma membrane.