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Journal of Virology, April 2001, p. 3413-3426, Vol. 75, No. 7
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.7.3413-3426.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Analysis of Protein Expression from within the Region Encoding
the 2.0-Kilobase Latency-Associated Transcript of Herpes Simplex
Virus Type 1
Martin
Lock,
Cathie
Miller, and
Nigel W.
Fraser*
Department of Microbiology, University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6076
Received 8 August 2000/Accepted 4 January 2001
During latent infections of sensory neurons, herpes simplex virus
type 1 gene expression is restricted to the latency-associated transcripts (LATs). The association of the stable 2.0-kb LAT intron with polysomes has suggested that it might represent a novel mRNA. In
this work, we investigated expression of 2.0-kb LAT open reading frames
(ORFs) by inserting the gene for green fluorescent protein (GFP) within
the 2.0-kb LAT sequence, both within a LAT expression plasmid and in
the context of the virus. Upon transient transfection of cells of both
neuronal and nonneuronal origin with LAT-GFP expression vectors,
low-level GFP fluorescence was distributed over the cell cytoplasm and
likely resulted from infrequent initiation at a GFP AUG codon, on
either unspliced or alternately spliced LAT RNAs. A second nucleolar
GFP expression pattern which resulted from fusion of GFP to a conserved
ORF in exon 1 of the LAT gene was also observed. However, the abundant
expression of this fusion protein was dependent upon an artificially
added translation initiation codon. Expression was much reduced and
restricted to a small subset of transfected cells when this initator
codon was removed. Neither the 2.0-kb LAT-GFP intron itself nor
transcripts originating from the latency-associated promoter 2 (LAP2)
were responsible for GFP expression. Abundant alternate splicing
involving the 1.5-kb LAT splice acceptor and including splicing between
the 1.5-kb LAT splice donor and acceptor, was observed in the
nonneuronal Cos-1 cell line. Contrary to the results of our
transfection studies, GFP expression could not be detected from a
LAT-GFP virus at any stage of the infection cycle. Our results suggest
that the inhibition of LAT ORF expression during viral infection
occurred primarily at the level of translation.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania, 315 Johnson Pavilion,
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6076. Phone: (215) 898-3847. Fax: (215)
898-3849. E-mail: nfraser{at}mail.med.upenn.edu.
Journal of Virology, April 2001, p. 3413-3426, Vol. 75, No. 7
0022-538X/01/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.75.7.3413-3426.2001
Copyright © 2001, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
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