The research team led by Prof. Chen Xinwen from WIV recently made great progress in innate immune pathway regulation, identifying an alternatively spliced isoform of MITA lacking exon 7, termed MITA-related protein (MRP), the findings of which has been published in the internationally prestigious journal, namely, The Journal of Immunology.

The team identified an alternatively spliced isoform of MITA, designated as MITArelated protein (MRP), and examined the function of MRP in the context of MITAmediated signaling. The results suggested that MRP acts largely as a dominant negative mutant of MITA and blocks MITA-mediated IFN induction via TBK1/IRF3 by disrupting the MITA–TBK1 interaction. However, MRP retained the ability to activate NF-kB. Their findings provide a new mechanism for the negative regulation of MITA-mediated signaling.