DEK trace – Deciphering the pro-viral role of the DEK proto-oncogene and transcriptional regulator during HAdV infection

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Sabrina Schreiner
• Subject Area: Virology ; Cell Biology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 575760025

Human Adenoviruses (HAdV) lead to life-threatening infections accompanied by an enormously high mortality rate in immunocompromised patients. Numerous studies actually reveal that newly evolved virus serotypes circulate with the capacity to result in severe pulmonary disease also in immunocompetent patients. HAdV transmission occurs via air, water or contaminated surfaces as these particles are very stable in the environment and infectious over weeks. Several reports even discuss the risk of an upcoming deadly pandemic scenario (2). It is currently a problem that we have neither vaccines available for the public population nor specific therapeutic approaches blocking HAdV infections, which is why patients are only treated symptomatically in the clinic. Apart from this issue, HAdVs are oncogenic viruses that are suspected of causing human tumors. Taken together, this shows us the urgent need to better understand the biology of HAdV in order to develop therapy options and intervention strategies. In this regard, we observed that the host chromatin-associated DEK protein plays a pivotal role during HAdV infection. This DEK proto-oncogene with transcriptional activity represents a host protein that is beneficial for HAdV replication and viral gene expression. We hypothesize that DEK and the associated cellular network represents a novel potential target candidate for antiviral treatment. To understand the molecular background and regulation in detail, we will elucidate the precise role of DEK during HAdV infection through high-throughput analyses such as ChIPseq, RNAseq, LS-MS, as well as biochemical analyses to validate the results obtained and determine the underlying control mechanism and the molecular network. We will clarify the role of DEK posttranslational modification that is involved in host and viral epigenetic regulation, gene transcriptional control and cellular oncogenesis. We will also gain insight into the role of DEK protein concentration on tissue specificity and tropism of HAdV, lytic-latent switches during infection and virus-dependent transformation events.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants