# Autophagy regulation and viral exploitation: insights into African swine fever virus pathogenesis

## TL;DR

This paper reviews how African swine fever virus manipulates autophagy, a cellular process, to aid its infection and suggests targeting autophagy could help control the virus.

## Contribution

The paper provides a framework for understanding how ASFV exploits autophagy, offering novel therapeutic insights.

## Key findings

- ASFV interacts with autophagy to influence viral replication and immune evasion.
- Autophagy-modulating viral proteins determine infection outcomes.
- Targeting autophagy could lead to new antiviral strategies against ASFV.

## Abstract

African swine fever virus (ASFV), a devastating pathogen of swine, poses a great threat to the global pork industry and food supply due to its high lethality and lack of effective countermeasures. In this review, we aim to elucidate the intricate interplay between ASFV and host autophagy-a cellular process with dual roles in viral pathogenesis. By dissecting the molecular mechanisms through which ASFV interacts with autophagy, this review resolves key controversies surrounding autophagy’s context-dependent effects on viral replication, immune evasion, and tissue damage. The significance of this work lies in its potential to bridge current knowledge gaps by unraveling how autophagy-modulating viral proteins dictate divergent outcomes in infection, identifying novel therapeutic targets to counteract ASFV immune evasion strategies, and providing a framework for understanding host-pathogen conflicts in large DNA virus infections. Overall, we hope that proposing autophagy-targeted interventions could act as a paradigm shift in developing urgently needed antiviral strategies against ASFV.