Blood coagulation is a host defense system that prevents the spread of pathogens. It is mediated by a variety of proteases (protein-cleaving enzymes) that also activate cells by cleaving a group of proteins known as PARs. Silvio Antoniak and colleagues evaluated the role of PAR-1 in the immune response to viral infection. They infected wild type mice and Par1-deficient mice with coxsackievirus B3, an enterovirus that can causes meningitis and pericarditis in humans. Here, they measured inflammation in the hearts of wild type (left) and Par1-deficient (right) mice by staining sections of heart tissue for inflammatory CD68+ cells (lower panels). These results indicate that PAR-1 contributes to the innate immune response during single-stranded RNA viral infection.
Coagulation is a host defense system that limits the spread of pathogens. Coagulation proteases, such as thrombin, also activate cells by cleaving PARs. In this study, we analyzed the role of PAR-1 in coxsackievirus B3–induced (CVB3-induced) myocarditis and influenza A infection. CVB3-infected
Silvio Antoniak, A. Phillip Owens III, Martin Baunacke, Julie C. Williams, Rebecca D. Lee, Alice Weithäuser, Patricia A. Sheridan, Ronny Malz, James P. Luyendyk, Denise A. Esserman, JoAnn Trejo, Daniel Kirchhofer, Burns C. Blaxall, Rafal Pawlinski, Melinda A. Beck, Ursula Rauch, Nigel Mackman