Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Tianyao Chen Sciences

Yeast Two-Hybrid Screening for Human Cytomegalovirus Proteins Interacting with Complement C3

Scholars Journal

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infects 60%–90% of the global population, establishes lifelong latency, and causes severe disease in immunocompromised individuals. Central to this persistence is the virus's ability to evade host immune defenses. Complement component C3 is a central protein in the complement system, an innate immune pathway that helps recognize and eliminate pathogens. C3 is a key mediator of innate antiviral defense and a likely target of this evasion, yet the viral proteins involved remain uncharacterized. In this study, Tianyao will investigate which HCMV-encoded proteins physically interact with C3. Using a yeast two-hybrid screen against an HCMV library, he will identify candidate viral proteins that may target this immune mediator. These findings may reveal new mechanisms of HCMV immune evasion and provide a foundation for future mechanistic and therapeutic studies.