Spatiotemporal regulation of the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus host shutoff factor SOX

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) employs multiple strategies to manipulate host cell biology during lytic replication, among which host shutoff (HSO) plays a critical role in evading immune detection and remodeling the intracellular environment to favor viral gene expression. Central to this process is the protein SOX (shutoff and exonuclease), a bifunctional nuclease with both DNA exonuclease activity and endonucleolytic cleavage activity against host and viral mRNAs. While SOX has been characterized as an essential effector of host shutoff, relatively little is known about the regulation of SOX itself. This work provides an investigation of SOX expression patterns during lytic KSHV infection and explores emerging evidence that KSHV, like other viruses, may regulate SOX protein abundance and activity to balance viral replication with host shutoff.