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Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 6652-6658, Vol. 74, No. 14
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

The bfl-1 Gene Is Transcriptionally Upregulated by the Epstein-Barr Virus LMP1, and Its Expression Promotes the Survival of a Burkitt's Lymphoma Cell Line

Brendan D'Souza,1 Martin Rowe,2 and Dermot Walls1,*

School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland,1 and Department of Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Cardiff CF14 4XX, United Kingdom2

Received 12 January 2000/Accepted 17 April 2000

The recently identified bfl-1 gene (also known as A1 or GRS), a homologue of bcl-2, encodes an antiapoptotic protein that suppresses apoptosis induced by the p53 tumor suppressor protein and exhibits proliferative and potent cooperative transforming activities. We show that elevated levels of bfl-1 mRNA are a feature of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-immortalized B-cell lines and Burkitt's lymphoma cell lines expressing the full spectrum of EBV latent proteins. Using an EBV-negative Burkitt's lymphoma cell line in which the expression of EBV latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) is inducibly regulated by tetracycline, we demonstrate that LMP1 expression coincides with a dramatic increase in the level of bfl-1 mRNA. Also in this system, an increase in the level of Bcl-2 protein was seen to occur earlier than that of bcl-2 mRNA, suggesting that both transcriptional and translational mechanisms are involved in the control of Bcl-2 expression by LMP-1. We show that elevated bfl-1 mRNA stability can contribute to this effect of LMP-1, thus providing evidence of a novel mechanism of gene regulation by this EBV protein. Upregulation of bfl-1 by LMP1 was not observed in the T-cell line Jurkat or the epithelial cell line C33A. Ectopic expression of Bfl-1 in an EBV-positive cell line exhibiting a latency type I infection protects against apoptosis induced by growth factor deprivation, thereby providing a functional role for Bfl-1 in this cellular context and adding Bfl-1 to the list of antiapoptotic proteins whose expression is modulated by EBV. This is the first report of the regulation of bfl-1 expression by a viral protein, and this novel finding may thus represent an important link between the EBV oncoprotein LMP1 and its cellular growth-transforming properties.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: School of Biotechnology, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland. Phone: 353.1.7045600. Fax: 353.1.7045412. E-mail: Dermot.Walls{at}dcu.ie.

Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 6652-6658, Vol. 74, No. 14
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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