Herpes simplex virus 1 expressing GFP-tagged virion host shutoff (vhs) protein uncouples the activities of degradation and nuclear retention of the infected cell transcriptome

Virion host shutoff (vhs) protein is an endoribonuclease encoded by herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1). Vhs causes a number of changes to the infected cell environment that favour translation of late (L) virus proteins: cellular mRNAs are degraded, immediate-early (IE) and early (E) viral transcripts are sequestered in the nucleus with polyA binding protein (PABPC1), and dsRNA is degraded to help dampen the PKR-dependent stress response. To further our understanding of the cell biology of vhs, we constructed a virus expressing vhs tagged at its C-terminus with GFP. When first expressed, vhs-GFP localised to juxtanuclear clusters, and later it colocalised and interacted with its binding partner VP16, and was packaged into virions. Despite vhs-GFP maintaining activity when expressed in isolation, it failed to degrade mRNA or relocalise PABPC1 during infection, while viral transcript levels were similar to those seen for a vhs knockout virus. PKR phosphorylation was also enhanced in vhs-GFP infected cells, in line with a failure to degrade dsRNA. Nonetheless, mRNA FISH revealed that as in Wt but not {Delta}vhs infection, IE and E, but not L transcripts were retained in the nucleus of vhs-GFP infected cells at late times. Moreover, a representative cellular transcript which is ordinarily highly susceptible to vhs degradation, was also retained in the nucleus. These results reveal that the vhs-induced nuclear retention of the infected cell transcriptome is dependent on vhs expression but not on its endoribonuclease activity, uncoupling these two functions of vhs. ImportanceLike many viruses, herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1) expresses an endoribonuclease, the virion host shutoff (vhs) protein, which regulates the RNA environment of the infected cell and facilitates the classical cascade of virus protein translation. It does this by causing the degradation of some mRNA molecules and the nuclear retention of others. Here we describe a virus expressing vhs tagged at its C-terminus with green fluorescent protein (GFP) and show that the vhs-GFP fusion protein retains the physical properties of native vhs, but does not induce the degradation of mRNA. Nonetheless, vhs-GFP maintains the ability to trap the infected cell transcriptome in the nucleus, proving for the first time that mRNA degradation is not a prerequisite for vhs effects on the nuclear transcriptome. This virus has therefore uncoupled the nuclear retention and degradation activities of vhs, providing new understanding of vhs during infection.