ALIX Rescues Budding of a Double PTAP/PPEY L-Domain Deletion Mutant of Ebola VP40: A Role for ALIX in Ebola Virus Egress

Ebola (EBOV) is an enveloped, negative-sense RNA virus belonging to the family Filoviridae that causes hemorrhagic fever syndromes with high-mortality rates. To date, there are no licensed vaccines or therapeutics to control EBOV infection and prevent transmission. Consequently, the need to better understand the mechanisms that regulate virus transmission is critical to developing countermeasures. The EBOV VP40 matrix protein plays a central role in late stages of virion assembly and egress, and independent expression of VP40 leads to the production of virus-like particles (VLPs) by a mechanism that accurately mimics budding of live virus. VP40 late (L) budding domains mediate efficient virus-cell separation by recruiting host ESCRT and ESCRT-associated proteins to complete the membrane fission process. L-domains consist of core consensus amino acid motifs including PPxY, P(T/S)AP, and YPx(n)L/I, and EBOV VP40 contains overlapping PPxY and PTAP motifs whose interactions with Nedd4 and Tsg101, respectively, have been characterized extensively. Here, we present data demonstrating for the first time that EBOV VP40 possesses a third L-domain YPx(n)L/I consensus motif that interacts with the ESCRT-III protein Alix. We show that the YPx(n)L/I motif mapping to amino acids 18-26 of EBOV VP40 interacts with the Alix Bro1-V fragment, and that siRNA knockdown of endogenous Alix expression inhibits EBOV VP40 VLP egress. Furthermore, overexpression of Alix Bro1-V rescues VLP production of the budding deficient EBOV VP40 double PTAP/PPEY L-domain deletion mutant to wild-type levels. Together, these findings demonstrate that EBOV VP40 recruits host Alix via a YPx(n)L/I motif that can function as an alternative L-domain to promote virus egress.