Prolonged Activity of the Pestiviral RNase Erns as an Interferon Antagonist after Uptake by Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis

The RNase activity of the envelope glycoprotein Erns of the pestivirus bovine viral diarrhea virus (BVDV) is required to block type I interferon (IFN) synthesis induced by single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) and double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) in bovine cells. Due to the presence of an unusual membrane anchor at its C terminus, a significant portion of Erns is also secreted. In addition, a binding site for cell surface glycosaminoglycans is located within the C-terminal region of Erns. Here, we show that the activity of soluble Erns as an IFN antagonist is not restricted to bovine cells. Extracellularly applied Erns protein bound to cell surface glycosaminoglycans and was internalized into the cells within 1 h of incubation by an energy-dependent mechanism that could be blocked by inhibitors of clathrin-dependent endocytosis. E-rns mutants that lacked the C-terminal membrane anchor retained RNase activity but lost most of their intracellular activity as an IFN antagonist. Surprisingly, once taken up into the cells, Erns remained active and blocked dsRNA-induced IFN synthesis for several days. Thus, we propose that Erns acts as an enzymatically active decoy receptor that degrades extracellularly added viral RNA mainly in endolysosomal compartments that might otherwise activate intracellular pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) in order to maintain a state of innate immunotolerance.