Diverse yeast antiviral systems prevent lethal pathogenesis caused by the L-A mycovirus

Abstract

Recent studies show that antiviral systems are remarkably conserved from bacteria to mammals, demonstrating that unique insights into these systems can be gained by studying microbial organisms. Unlike in bacteria, however, where phage infection can be lethal, no cytotoxic viral consequence is known in the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae even though it is chronically infected with a double-stranded RNA mycovirus called L-A. This remains the case despite the previous identification of conserved antiviral systems that limit L-A replication. Here, we show that these systems collaborate to prevent rampant L-A replication, which causes lethality in cells grown at high temperature. Exploiting this discovery, we use an overexpression screen to identify antiviral functions for the yeast homologs of polyA-binding protein (PABPC1) and the La-domain containing protein Larp1, which are both involved in viral innate immunity in humans. Using a complementary loss of function approach, we identify new antiviral functions for the conserved RNA exonucleases REX2 and MYG1; the SAGA and PAF1 chromatin regulatory complexes; and HSF1, the master transcriptional regulator of the proteostatic stress response. Through investigation of these antiviral systems, we show that L-A pathogenesis is associated with an activated proteostatic stress response and the accumulation of cytotoxic protein aggregates. These findings identify proteotoxic stress as an underlying cause of L-A pathogenesis and further advance yeast as a powerful model system for the discovery and characterization of conserved antiviral systems.