Herein we demonstrated that infection of macrophages with lentiviral particles pseudotyped with MERS-CoV S glycoprotein results in suppression of macrophage responses since it reduced the capacity of macrophages to produce TNFa and IL-6 in naive and LPS-activated THP-1 macrophages and augmented LPS-induced production of the immunosuppressive cytokine IL-10. The gene discussed is ART4; the disease is infection.