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Journal of Virology, January 2003, p. 1441-1451, Vol. 77, No. 2
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.2.1441-1451.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Kaposi's Sarcoma-Associated Herpesvirus K-bZIP Is a Coregulator of K-Rta: Physical Association and Promoter-Dependent Transcriptional Repression

Yoshihiro Izumiya,¹ Su-Fang Lin,¹ Thomas Ellison,¹ Ling-Yu Chen,¹ Chie Izumiya,¹ Paul Luciw,² and Hsing-Jien Kung^1*

Department of Biological Chemistry, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis, UC Davis Cancer Center, Sacramento, California 95817,¹ Center for Comparative Medicine, University of California—Davis, Davis, California 95616²

Received 9 July 2002/ Accepted 3 October 2002

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a human gammaherpesvirus that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Kaposi's sarcoma and B-cell neoplasms. The genomic organization of KSHV is similar to that of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). EBV encodes two transcriptional factors, Rta and Zta, which functionally interact to transactivate EBV genes during replication and reactivation from latency. KSHV encodes a basic leucine zipper protein (K-bZIP), a homologue of EBV Zta, and K-Rta, the homologue of EBV Rta. EBV Rta and Zta are strong transcriptional transactivators. Although there is ample evidence that K-Rta is a potent transactivator, the role of K-bZIP as a transcriptional factor is much less clear. In this study, we report that K-bZIP modulates K-Rta function. We show that K-bZIP directly interacts with K-Rta in vivo and in vitro. This association is specific, requiring the basic domain (amino acids 122 to 189) of K-bZIP and a specific region (amino acids 499 to 550) of K-Rta, and can be detected with K-bZIP and K-Rta endogenously expressed in BCBL-1 cells treated with tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate. The functional relevance of this association was revealed by the observation that K-bZIP represses the transactivation of the ORF57 promoter by K-Rta in a dose-dependent manner. K-bZIP lacking the interaction domain fails to repress K-Rta-mediated transactivation; this finding attests to the specificity of the repression. Interestingly, this repression is not observed for the promoter of polyadenylated nuclear (PAN) RNA, another target of K-Rta; thus, repression is promoter dependent. Finally, we provide evidence that the modulation of K-Rta by K-bZIP also occurs in vivo during reactivation of the viral genome in BCBL-1 cells. When K-bZIP is overexpressed in BCBL-1 cells, the level of expression of ORF57 but not PAN RNA is repressed. These data support the model that one function of K-bZIP is to modulate the activity of the transcriptional transactivator K-Rta.

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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: UC Davis Cancer Center, Research Building III, Room 2400B, 4645 2nd Ave., Sacramento, CA 95817. Phone: (916) 734-1538. Fax: (916) 734-2589. E-mail: hkung{at}ucdavis.edu.

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Journal of Virology, January 2003, p. 1441-1451, Vol. 77, No. 2
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.2.1441-1451.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

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