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Journal of Virology, October 1998, p. 8425-8429, Vol. 72, No. 10
Department of Clinical and Experimental
Medicine, Division of Microbiology, University of Bologna, St.
Orsola Hospital, Bologna, Italy
Received 11 May 1998/Accepted 10 July 1998
The major early transcript of
HCMV.
Among
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
The Major Open Reading Frame of the
2.7
Transcript of Human Cytomegalovirus: In Vitro Expression of a Protein
Posttranscriptionally Regulated by the 5' Region

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ABSTRACT
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Abstract
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2.7 is the major early transcript produced during human
cytomegalovirus infection. This abundantly expressed RNA is polysome associated, but no protein product has ever been detected. In this
study, a stable peptide of 24 kDa was produced in vitro from the major
open reading frame (ORF), TRL4. Following transient transfection, the
intracellular localization was nucleolar and the expression was
posttranscriptionally inhibited by the 5' sequence of the transcript,
which harbors two short upstream ORFs.
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TEXT
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Abstract
Text
References
class genes of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), an
unspliced polyadenylated RNA of 2.7 kb originates within the two
inverted repeats flanking the long unique segment (8, 39)
(Fig. 1a). The two copies of the
2.7
transcript in the viral DNA each have one open reading frame (ORF),
named TRL4 or IRL4 (EMBL accession no. X17403).
2.7 is the most
abundant transcript, representing more than 20% of the total viral
mRNA made during infection (17, 28). Its promoter element,
referred to as the
2.7 promoter, is contained within a region
beginning 213 bp upstream from the start site of transcription and has
homologies to known transcription factor-binding sites (20,
38). This promoter is transactivated by immediate-early 1 and 2 gene products of HCMV, but other viral factors are necessary for its
full, high-level expression (19). Starting from 4 h
postinfection this transcript accumulates progressively throughout the
replication cycle; it shows maximal amplification at between 8 and
14 h (29).

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FIG. 1.
Schematic representations of the constructed plasmids.
(a) Localization of TRL4 and IRL4 within the inverted repeats
(TRL and IRL) flanking the long unique segment
(UL) of the HCMV genome. (b) Eukaryotic expression plasmids
pAD/ORF3* and pTo/ORF3*, containing ORF3 from AD169 and Towne
attached to the FLAG sequence (*), and constructs pAD/ORF1-2-3* and
pTo/ORF1-2-3*, in which the corresponding inserts are extended by the
respective 5' regions including uORF1 and uORF2. pTo/ORF3 harbors ORF3
from Towne without the FLAG sequence. Differences between Towne and
AD169 regarding the coding information of the 5' terminal parts are
illustrated by proportional depictions of the transcribed products
(black lines) of the predicted ORFs (black boxes). MIEP, major
intermediate early promoter; T7, T7 promoter.
2.7 transcript seems
to be exclusively confined to the nucleus (40).
Nevertheless, during productive infection it is predominantly localized
in the cytoplasm and is associated with the polysomes (25,
39). Although this localization pattern is consistent with an
active translation during productive infection, no specific translation
product has been detected so far (14), supporting an
alternative functional hypothesis in which the RNA itself might have
some regulatory role during infection (30).
In addition to TRL4, which is 513 nucleotides (nt) long (14)
and is here also referred to as ORF3, two short upstream ORFs (uORFs),
ORF1 and ORF2, have been identified in the sequence of the
2.7
transcript. ORF1 is located 81 nt from the transcription start site,
and its 24-nt sequence is conserved in both the Towne and AD169 strains
(5, 13). In contrast, ORF2 differs considerably in the two
laboratory strains. In Towne it starts 20 nt downstream from the end of
ORF1 and is 18 nt long, while in AD169 it starts 34 nt downstream from
ORF1 and is composed of 108 nt.
Previous analyses, using a transient-transfection assay with
lacZ as an indicator gene, have identified regulatory
domains within the 5' leader of the
2.7 transcript (1,
13). These studies demonstrated the existence of an inhibitory
cis-acting signal which operates at a posttranscriptional
level by repressing translation from the downstream reporter gene. This
repression also seemed to alter the kinetics of expression during the
infection cycle. The sequence causing this effect required an intact
ORF1 and 32 downstream nucleotides including the AUG codon of ORF2 (11).
mRNAs containing one or more short uORFs have been characterized for
both viral and cellular systems (21, 22). In some cases the
AUG codons of these uORFs appear to negatively regulate downstream
translation when they are recognized as valid start codons by
eukaryotic ribosomes (7, 15, 16, 33, 36). According to
Kozak's model, the inhibitory influence of these uORFs might therefore
be due either to the provocation by the short intercistronic space of
an inefficient reinitiation at subsequent internal start sites or to
the complete dissociation of the ribosome from the mRNA after efficient
translation of the uORF (24). Alternatively, the nascent
peptide encoded by the uORF could interact with the ribosome and
prevent its disassembly, thus blocking the scanning mechanism, as
proposed by Geballe and Morris (10, 12).
In this study we investigated the ORFs of the
2.7 transcript. A
specific product of approximately 24 kDa was synthesized following
eukaryotic expression of TRL4 in a cell-free assay; this is the first
evidence that a stable protein can be produced in vitro from this
sequence. Following transient transfection of various cell types, the
TRL4 product, pTRL4, tagged with an immunoreactive epitope, FLAG, was
found to be localized mainly within intranuclear bodies (the nucleoli).
Importantly, TRL4 is largely conserved in HCMV strains, consistent with
its predicted role in viral infection. The expression of this protein
seemed to be highly regulated at a posttranscriptional level by the 5' leader sequence of its mRNA, which bears the two short uORFs. This
study was a preliminary assessment of the putative protein coded for by
the
2.7 transcript, conducted with a view to carrying out
experiments to define TRL4 expression in the context of viral lytic
infection or latent and persistent infection.
TRL4 codes in vitro for a protein. TRL4, coding for a putative product of 19.6 kDa, was cloned into the vector pcDNA3 (Invitrogen), under the transcriptional control of the T7 promoter and the major immediate-early promoter/enhancer element of HCMV (Fig. 1b). The resulting plasmid, pTo/ORF3, was subjected to an in vitro transcription and translation assay in rabbit reticulocyte lysates (RRL) (TNT System; Promega), and a stable product of approximately 24 kDa was detected (Fig. 2, lane 2). Although the expression in RRL was not very efficient, these data indicate that the TRL4 start codon is recognized by the eukaryotic translational machinery. In prokaryotic systems, despite using different fusion partners, we could not obtain a stable product with a full-length peptide derived from TRL4. Since no polyclonal antibody was available, an immunoreactive octapeptide, termed FLAG (indicated in construct names by an asterisk), was fused to the carboxy terminus of pTRL4, yielding the construct pTo/ORF3*.
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uORFs inhibit translation of TRL4. The 5' leader sequences of both AD169 and Towne were individually inserted into pcDNA3 upstream ORF3 as they occur in their native mRNAs. The two resulting constructs, pTo/ORF1-2-3* and pAD/ORF1-2-3* (Fig. 1b), were used in a coupled in vitro transcription- translation assay to determine whether pTRL4 is also produced in the presence of uORFs. In both cases autoradiographic analysis showed a faint band corresponding to a product with the molecular weight of the tagged pTRL4 (Fig. 2, lanes 4 and 5). This suggests that in its original context ORF3 can still be recognized by ribosomes, but its expression is extremely reduced compared to that found in the absence of the 5' leader (Fig. 2, lane 3).
In order to rule out the possibility that this reduction was due to differences in transcription, the plasmid pTo/ORF3* was added to the mixture for each reaction performed with the two constructs described above. Northern blot analysis of total mRNAs revealed that transcripts with and without the 5' leader region were synthesized with comparable efficiencies in this in vitro system (Fig. 2b). This observation indicated that a posttranscriptional process was responsible for reducing the expression of TRL4. Moreover, strain diversity in the coding information of uORF2 did not influence this inhibitory effect.
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2.7 messenger expresses a protein during infection. In fact, examples of in vitro-expressed viral proteins have been reported in the literature (9), but confirmation in in vivo experiments has not been
obtained.
On the basis of our findings and previous reports showing that the
expression of an ORF downstream from the 5' leader of the
2.7
transcript is temporarily regulated during viral replication (13), we suggest that the constitutive inhibitory effect we observed could be partially or completely released in lytic infection or latent and persistent infection. Such a posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression is not unusual, since some key eukaryotic genes, oncoproteins, receptors, and transcription factors that are
constitutively repressed by the 5' leader region (20) can be
modulated by physiological conditions and during cellular
differentiation (31). Therefore, translation of TRL4, most
likely inhibited by the uORFs, might occur under particular conditions
related to cell type and/or cell differentiation.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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We thank A. P. Geballe (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Wash.) and E. S. Mocarski (Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.) for reviewing the manuscript, R. Luhrmann and K. Radsak (Philipps University, Marburg, Germany) for valuable discussions, and M. La Placa (Bologna, Italy) for encouragement. We thank Luisa Bertacchi for excellent technical assistance.
This work was partially supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research, 60% and 40% grant; by the ECC Project Bio-med 2; and by the AIDS Project of the Italian Ministry of Public Health.
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FOOTNOTES |
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* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Division of Microbiology, University of Bologna, St. Orsola Hospital, Via Massarenti 9, 40138 Bologna, Italy. Phone: 39-51-341652. Fax: 39-51-341632. E-mail: gioi{at}med.unibo.it.
Present address: Institute for Virology, Philipps University, 35037 Marburg, Germany.
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