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J Virol, January 1998, p. 796-801, Vol. 72, No. 1
Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes
of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Received 21 August 1997/Accepted 30 September 1997
The bovine papillomavirus type 1 E1 protein is important for viral
DNA replication and transcriptional repression. It has been proposed
that the full-length E1 protein consists of a small N-terminal and a
larger C-terminal domain. In this study, it is shown that an E1
polypeptide containing residues 132 to 605 (which represents the
C-terminal domain) is able to support transient viral DNA replication,
although at a level lower than that supported by the wild-type protein.
This domain can also repress E2-mediated transactivation from the P89
promoter as well as the wild-type E1 protein can.
The bovine papillomavirus type 1 (BPV-1) genome replicates as a stable nuclear episome. In addition to
cellular proteins, the viral origin of replication and the E1 and E2
proteins are necessary for DNA replication (31). The origin
consists of an AT-rich region and an E1 and E2 binding site (16,
30, 31, 37). The E1 protein initiates DNA replication by binding
to the origin (6, 33, 36), and the E2 protein is a
transcriptional transactivator that cooperatively binds to the origin
with E1 (22, 25, 36). E1 also represses viral transformation
(8, 20) and can regulate viral gene expression (9,
18). The E2 protein can activate transcription from several viral
promoters (24). The P89 promoter is located just downstream
from the replication origin, and E1 can significantly repress
E2-mediated transactivation of this promoter (9, 18, 24).
The E1 proteins are well-conserved among papillomaviruses. There is
moderate homology of the N-terminal 120 amino acids and high homology
of the C-terminal 450 amino acids among E1 proteins. A short
nonconserved sequence links these regions (19). This fact
suggests that E1 might consist of two separate structural domains
linked by a short spacer region. The E1 protein also has minimal
sequence homology with simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen. Homology
between these proteins exists primarily in the nuclear localization
sequence (NLS) in the N-terminal region of both proteins and in the ATP
binding motif in the C-terminal region (2, 11). A second
protein, E1-M, is encoded by the E1 open reading frame (ORF) and
consists of the putative N-terminal domain (residues 1 to 129) linked
to 13 amino acids of a downstream ORF (28). No function has
been assigned to E1-M, but its existence lends support to the
hypothesis that the N-terminal region of E1 constitutes a separate
domain. The putative N-terminal domain of E1 contains the NLS
(11) and multiple phosphorylation sites (11, 40).
There are reports that polypeptides containing the N-terminal region
can interact and cooperatively bind to the origin with E2 (1, 10,
29). However, other studies have shown that E1 polypeptides
containing the putative C-terminal domain can interact with E2 and
cooperatively bind to the origin as efficiently as wild-type
E1 (17, 19, 39). Based on these findings, we have postulated
that the E1 protein is comprised of two distinct functional domains
(see Fig. 1).
EE-E1132-605 can cooperatively bind to the origin with
the E2 protein.
Our previous studies have shown that E1 residues
162 to 605 (E1162-605) are required for cooperative
origin binding with E2 (19). Thus,
E1132-605 with the EE epitope (EE-E1132-605)
should specifically bind the origin and this binding should be enhanced by E2. This hypothesis was tested by a DNA-protein
coimmunoprecipitation assay. 35S-labeled E1 and E2 proteins
were expressed by TNT coupled transcription and translation (Promega)
from plasmids containing a T7 RNA polymerase promoter. The E1 proteins
contain a short EE epitope (5) fused to their N termini to
enable immunoprecipitation of the truncated E1 protein. Plasmid
p5'EE-pTM1E1 encodes the entire E1 polypeptide with the EE epitope
(19). pTZEE-E1132-605 was generated by placing the NruI-to-BglII (nucleotides 840 to 1515)
fragment of pTZE1 (which contains BPV-1 nucleotides 840 to 2766 downstream from the T7 promoter in pTZ18R [U.S. Biochemicals]) with
an NruI-to-BglII fragment that encodes the EE
epitope, the SV40 T antigen NLS (MGEEEEYMPMEGPKKKRKV), and
sequences of E1. Full-length E2 was expressed from pTZkzE2 (15). A diagram of the E1 proteins used in this study is
shown in Fig. 1.
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Transient Viral DNA Replication and Repression of
Viral Transcription Are Supported by the C-Terminal Domain of the
Bovine Papillomavirus Type 1 E1 Protein
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FIG. 1.
(A) Diagram of the two putative functional domains of
the BPV-1 E1 protein. The regions of E1 required for nuclear
localization (NLS) (11), ATP binding (26), origin
binding, and cooperative origin binding with E2 (19) have
been previously reported. (B) E1 proteins used in this study. The
filled rectangles represent EE epitopes, and the open rectangles
represent the SV40 T-antigen NLS. Arrows indicate the positions of
TTLs. wt, wild type.
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EE-E1132-605 can support transient viral replication. To determine if the truncated E1 protein could support transient viral DNA replication, E1 expression plasmids were transfected into CHO cells by electroporation (31) together with the E2 expression vector pCGE2 (31) and a plasmid containing the replication origin (p716; nucleotides 4786 to 7946 and 1 to 83) (34). pCGMluE1 expresses the E1 protein from the cytomegalovirus early promoter (31) and contains an MluI (nucleotide 7352)-to-BamHI (nucleotide 4451) BPV-1 fragment with a deletion from AvrII (nucleotide 2766) to BstXI (nucleotide 3881). pCGEE-E1 was derived from pCGMluE1 and encodes the full-length E1 gene with the EE epitope fused to its N terminus. pCGEE-E1132-605 encodes the C-terminal region of E1 (amino acids 132 to 605) with the EE epitope and NLS fused to its N terminus. pCGEE-E1132-519 was derived from pCGEE-E1132-605 by insertion of a translation termination linker (TTL) at the BstEII site (nucleotide 2405). Five days posttransfection, low-molecular-weight DNA was isolated, digested with both DpnI and HindIII or MboI and HindIII, and analyzed by Southern blot hybridization with a 32P-labeled long control region (LCR) DNA fragment (nucleotides 6987 to 7946 and 1 to 36). DNA that has undergone replication in eukaryotic cells is resistant to cleavage by DpnI but sensitive to MboI digestion. The linearized DpnI-resistant replicon migrates as a 3.2-kb fragment.
As shown in Fig. 2A, EE-E1132-605 was able to support viral DNA replication (lane 6) when it was expressed with E2, although to a much lesser extent than the wild-type E1 and EE-E1 proteins did (lanes 3 and 5, respectively). The level of replication observed ranged between 6 and 16% of that of the wild type (based on results from eight experiments). This low level of replication was confirmed by MboI digestion (data not shown). EE-E1132-519 (lane 7) was not able to support detectable replication. These results indicate that the C-terminal region of E1 (EE-E1132-605) is able to support low-level DNA replication and therefore contains all basic functions required for initiation of DNA synthesis. To confirm that the truncated E1 proteins were stably expressed, the E1 expression vectors (pCGEE-E1, pCGEE-E1132-605, and pCGEE-E1132-519) were transfected into COS-7 cells. The E1 proteins were labeled with [35S]methionine and isolated by immunoprecipitation with the EE antibody. This analysis showed that the truncated EE-E1 proteins were expressed at least as well as the full-length EE-E1 protein (data not shown). Therefore, the reduced ability of the EE-E1132-605 protein to support replication is not due to protein instability. Although the putative C-terminal domain of E1 contains the basic functions necessary to support replication, the N-terminal domain must have an important auxiliary function(s) needed for efficient replication. Similar results have been found with SV40 large T antigen. The analogous C-terminal region of T antigen (residues 83 to 708) retains helicase activity and binds SV40 origin DNA with reduced affinity but can support reduced levels of DNA replication in vitro (32). The truncated polypeptide also oligomerizes incorrectly on SV40 DNA. Thus, the first 82 residues of T antigen are not strictly required for DNA replication but may play a role in correct hexamer assembly and efficient origin binding (32). A similar region of polyomavirus large T antigen can also support reduced amounts of viral replication in vivo (4). The E1 protein initially binds the origin as a complex with E2 and then undergoes a transition to a trimeric or hexameric form that no longer contains E2 (3, 13, 21). In this study, EE-E1132-605 bound the replication origin as well as the wild-type protein; however, its ability to form hexamers has not been investigated. The EE-E1132-605 protein may be deficient in efficient oligomerization and therefore may not be able to support wild-type levels of replication. The 5' region of the E1 ORF also encodes the E1-M protein. This protein has been detected in virally transformed cells, but its function is unknown (28). A BPV-1 genome that does not express E1-M can replicate with a stability and copy number similar to those of wild-type DNA (7). Therefore, E1-M does not appear to be essential for stable replication. However, E1-M may have a regulatory function and its existence strengthens the hypothesis that full-length E1 is comprised of two domains.EE-E1132-605 is sufficient for repression of the viral P89 promoter. The E1 protein can repress E2-transactivated chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) expression from the P89 promoter (9, 18). To determine if the C-terminal region of E1 can support this function, primary BEF (bovine embryo fibroblast) cells were cotransfected with the E1 and E2 expression plasmids and the p1066 reporter plasmid, as described previously (18). p1066 contains the LCR and P89 promoter upstream from the CAT gene (Fig. 3A) (24). In this experiment we used plasmids pCGMluE1 and pCGEagE1 (which was derived from pCGMluE1 by deletion of sequences between MluI [nucleotide 7352] and EagI [nucleotide 619]) (31). Plasmid C59 was used to express E2 (38). E2 transactivates P89 by binding to E2 sites in the LCR (24), and as expected, CAT expression from p1066 was greatly increased (approximately 23-fold) in the presence of E2 (Fig. 3B). Cotransfection with pCGEagE1 or pCGMluE1 resulted in dramatic repression of E2-mediated CAT production from P89. However, pCGEagE1 repressed P89 expression to a greater extent than pCGMluE1 (approximately 10-fold versus 4-fold repression). This may be due to different levels of expression of E1 from the two plasmid backgrounds. Plasmid pCGEagE1 encodes only the E1 ORF, but pCGMluE1 also encodes the E6 and E7 ORFs (31). Coexpression of EE-E1132-605 (which is in the pCGMluE1 background) also resulted in severely repressed levels of CAT production from P89 (approximately 17-fold repression). The C-terminal region of E1 consistently inhibited P89 activity to a greater extent than wild-type E1 expressed from pCGEagE1 or pCGMluE1 did. This may be due to the higher levels of this protein that were detected by immunoprecipitation. EE-E1132-519 repressed P89 minimally, even though it contains the E1 DNA binding domain. However, E1132-519 is unable to cooperatively bind to the origin with the E2 protein. These results indicate that the entire C-terminal region of E1 is necessary and sufficient for repression of E2-mediated transactivation of P89.
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EE-E1132-605 can repress heterologous E2-responsive promoters. The ability of E1 to repress E2-transactivated CAT expression from two heterologous E2-responsive promoters was tested to determine if the observed repression was specific to P89. It has been previously shown that E2-responsive heterologous promoters are also repressed by E1. One study found minimal repression of E2-responsive heterologous promoters (18), while another reported more significant repression (9). p964 contains E2-responsive element 1 (E2RE1) upstream from the SV40 promoter (24) and is transactivated by E2 (Fig. 3C). Wild-type E1 proteins (expressed from pCGEagE1 and pCGMluE1) and EE-E1132-605 were able to repress the E2-responsive SV40 promoter (approximately 6-, 3.5-, and 4.5-fold repression, respectively); however, repression was less than that observed with p1066. Plasmid pTKM6 contains six E2 binding sites upstream of the thymidine kinase (TK) promoter (27). E2 also efficiently transactivated expression from this plasmid. The E2-responsive TK promoter was repressed approximately 3.5-fold by pCGEagE1 but was not repressed by pCGMluE1. The ability of these wild-type E1 constructs to repress transcription may be due to different levels of E1 expression. EE-E1132-605 repressed E2 transactivation from the TK promoter approximately 2.6-fold; however, this repression was also less than that seen for P89 (approximately 17-fold repression) (Fig. 3B). EE-E1132-519 did not significantly repress either heterologous promoter. These results indicate that the C-terminal region of the E1 protein can repress E2-transactivated transcription from heterologous promoters. However, as seen with wild-type E1, the level of repression is reduced compared to that of the P89 promoter.
The DNA binding function of E1 is not absolutely required for repression of viral transcription. A previous study indicated that binding of E1 to the origin is crucial for repression of transcription (18), while another study found that an E1 binding site is not necessary (9). To investigate if E1 DNA binding is necessary for repression of E2-mediated transactivation, E1 proteins defective for DNA binding were tested in the repression assay (Fig. 4). PCGEagE1-based plasmids LPM4, LPM5, and LPM6 containing these mutations were obtained from Michael Botchan (29). XmaCI-to-BstEII fragments from these plasmids were subcloned into pT7E1 to generate plasmids p1588, p1589, and p1585, respectively.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank Jodi Vogel and Carl Baker for critical reviews of the manuscript.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Laboratory of Viral Diseases, NIAID, NIH, Building 4, Room 137, 4 Center Dr., MCS 0455, Bethesda, MD 20892-0455. Phone: (301) 496-1370. Fax: (301) 480-1497. E-mail: alison_mcbride{at}nih.gov.
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