Negative regulation of the RLR‐mediated IFN signaling pathway by duck ubiquitin‐specific protease 18 (USP18)

Abstract Ubiquitin‐specific protease 18 (USP18) plays an important role in regulating type I interferon (IFN) signaling in innate immunity, and has a crucial impact on the IFN therapeutic effect. Although significant progress has been made in elucidating USP18 function in mammals, the role of USP18 in ducks (duUSP18) remains poorly understood. In this study, we cloned the USP18 gene from white crested ducks by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and rapid amplification of complementary DNA (cDNA) ends. We determined that duUSP18 cDNA contains a 52‐bp 5′UTR, a 1,131‐bp open reading frame and a 356‐bp 3′UTR, and encodes a 376‐amino acid protein. Multiple sequence alignments showed that duUSP18 shares high similarity with USP18 from other vertebrates. Overexpression of duUSP18 inhibited nuclear factor‐κB (NF‐κB) and interferon regulatory factor 1 (IRF1) activity, and reduced IFN‐β production following 5′ triphosphate double‐stranded RNA (5′ppp dsRNA) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. duUSP18 knockdown significantly activated 5′ppp dsRNA‐induced and LPS‐induced NF‐κB and IRF1 activation, and induced IFN‐β expression in duck embryo fibroblasts. Furthermore, Quantitative real‐time PCR (qRT‐PCR) revealed that overexpression or knockdown of duUSP18 could alter the expression of genes related to the RLR‐mediated IFN signaling pathway following the treatment with 5′ppp dsRNA. In addition, site‐directed mutation analysis revealed that cysteine 66 (C66), histidine 313 (H313), and histidine 321 (H321) of duUSP18 were critical for inhibiting IFN‐β activity. Taken together, these results suggest that duck USP18 plays an important role in innate immune responses against double‐stranded RNA viruses in the RLR‐mediated IFN signaling pathway, and that further studies are warranted to elucidate its underlying mechanisms, which could provide molecular insights into the effect of the treatment of duck diseases.