viruses Article Activation of the STAT3 Signaling Pathway by the RNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase Protein of Arenavirus Qingxing Wang 1,2 , Qilin Xin 3 , Weijuan Shang 1, Weiwei Wan 1,2, Gengfu Xiao 1,2,* and Lei-Ke Zhang 1,2,* 1 State Key Laboratory of Virology, Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, hubei, China;
[email protected] (Q.W.);
[email protected] (W.S.);
[email protected] (W.W.) 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China 3 UMR754, Viral Infections and Comparative Pathology, 50 Avenue Tony Garnier, CEDEX 07, 69366 Lyon, France;
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[email protected] (L.-K.Z.) Abstract: Arenaviruses cause chronic and asymptomatic infections in their natural host, rodents, and several arenaviruses cause severe hemorrhagic fever that has a high mortality in infected humans, seriously threatening public health. There are currently no FDA-licensed drugs available against arenaviruses; therefore, it is important to develop novel antiviral strategies to combat them, which would be facilitated by a detailed understanding of the interactions between the viruses and their hosts. To this end, we performed a transcriptomic analysis on cells infected with arenavirus lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), a neglected human pathogen with clinical significance, and found that the signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling pathway was activated. A further investigation indicated that STAT3 could be activated by the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase L protein (Lp) of LCMV. Our functional analysis found that STAT3 cannot affect Citation: Wang, Q.; Xin, Q.; Shang, LCMV multiplication in A549 cells.