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Journal of Virology, October 2002, p. 10559-10568, Vol. 76, No. 20
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.20.10559-10568.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
and Denise A. Galloway1,2*
Division of Human Biology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington 98109,1 Department of Microbiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 981952
Received 25 April 2002/ Accepted 3 July 2002
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79-83 (deletion of positions 79 through 83) were further tested in several models of cell cycle arrest associated with elevated levels of p21. C-terminal mutations rendered E7 unable to induce S phase and endoreduplication in differentiated keratinocytes and rendered it less efficient in delaying senescence of human mammary epithelial cells. Interestingly, when cell cycle arrest was induced with a peptide form of p21, the E7 C-terminal mutants were deficient in overcoming arrest, whereas a mutant defective in Rb binding was competent in inhibiting G1 arrest. These results suggest that the inactivation of both p21 and Rb by E7 contributes to subversion of cell cycle control in normal human epithelia but that neither p21 nor Rb inactivation alone is sufficient. |
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Both Rb and the cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor p21 prevent S phase in differentiated cells (2, 16, 30, 31, 38, 39). Rb binds to the E2F family of transcription factors in G1 and represses transcription of E2F-controlled S-phase genes (19), while p21 inhibits the activity of G1 and S-phase cyclin/CDK complexes important for cell cycle progression (50). Motifs in the N- and C-terminal halves of p21 can each inhibit CDK activity and arrest cells in G1 (1, 3, 7, 11). While substoichiometric amounts of p21 do not inhibit cyclin/CDK complexes, increased levels of p21 associated, for instance, with differentiation (29), senescence (42), or DNA damage (20) are inhibitory (27, 56). The C terminus of p21 also binds the DNA polymerase
processivity factor PCNA and inhibits PCNA-dependent DNA synthesis (53); however, the CDK inhibitory function is responsible for inducing G1 arrest (11, 43). E7 restores p21-inhibited CDK activity (23, 31), and the C terminus of E7 is sufficient for p21 inactivation in vitro (23). Furthermore, E7 and p21 interact in cells (23, 31), and it has been proposed that E7 may induce S phase in differentiated cells by inactivating p21 (31).
Propagation of human mammary epithelial cells (HMECs) in culture provides a model of epithelial senescence where the role of Rb can be temporally separated from other pathways of cell cycle arrest (21, 46). The first block, termed M0 (mortality stage 0) or selection, occurs after several passages in culture and is characterized by the presence of large, flat cells (21, 51). A role for Rb in imposing M0 lies in the observations that E7-expressing HMECs bypass M0 (21) depending upon the integrity of CR1 and the LXCXE motif (22) and that HMECs can spontaneously escape M0 by repressing expression of p16INK4A (9, 22), a CDK inhibitor that blocks phosphorylation of Rb (49). The subsequent proliferation arrest, known as M1 or senescence (48, 51), is associated with telomere attrition (37, 48), which triggers a p53-dependent DNA damage response (14). Moreover, increased levels of p53 and p21 have been observed in HMECs approaching M1 (22) and HMECs expressing a dominant negative p53 fail to arrest at M1 (24). Expression of either the HPV 16 E6 oncoprotein (4, 48) or the catalytic subunit of telomerase, hTERT (37), allows HMECs to bypass M1. E7 can extend the life span of HMECs but not beyond M1 (4, 48). Instead, the aging E7-expressing cells begin to grow in tight clumps and eventually cease proliferating (22). Whether the C terminus of E7 contributes to HMEC life span extension has not been explored.
Mutations within the C-terminal zinc finger of E7 separate Rb destabilization from the bypass of DNA damage checkpoints and keratinocyte senescence (28). The objectives of the present study were to further characterize the importance of the E7 C terminus in subverting epithelial cell cycle control and to test the hypothesis that C-terminal mutations prevent E7 from inactivating p21. The E7 mutant proteins tested in these studies included those that target Rb (E7 E46A, E7 CVQ68-70AAA, and E7
79-83 [with a deletion of positions 79 through 83]) (28) and those that do not target Rb (E7 H2P and E7
21-24) (16, 25, 28, 32). The locations of the E7 mutations are indicated in Fig. 1.
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FIG. 1. E7 schematic showing the locations of substitution mutations (e.g., H2P, histidine at position 2 replaced with proline) and deletion mutations (e.g., 21-24).
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FIG.2. Uncoupling of cell cycle arrest and differentiation by E7. (A) Keratin 10 expression in differentiated HFKs. The upper panels show keratin 10 labeling with an anti-keratin 10 antibody (DE-K10; Neomarkers), and the lower panels show nuclei counterstained with DAPI (Sigma). Images were collected with a 20x objective on a Nikon Eclipse TE300 microscope equipped with a charge-coupled-device camera (Roper Scientific) and Metamorph software (Universal Imaging Co.). GM, growth medium; DM, differentiation medium. (B) S-phase induction in differentiated HFKs. The S-phase populations are graphed normalized to populations of undifferentiated cells. Shown is a summary of the results of three experiments. Error bars represent standard deviations. (Raw data are presented in Table 1). (C) Giant nuclei in E7-expressing, differentiated HFKs. Images of DAPI-stained nuclei were collected at the same magnification with the equipment described for panel A. Examples are shown, with the percentage of cells with giant nuclei (of 300 cells counted) indicated in parentheses on each image. Nuclei were considered giant if their area was at least four times greater than the average size of nuclei in vector-expressing cells.
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21-24 (Table 1 and Fig. 2B), consistent with the behavior of these mutants in organotypic cultures of HFKs (16). In contrast, the S-phase fraction of differentiated HFKs expressing wild type E7 (E7 WT) or E7 E46A was approximately threefold greater than that of vector-expressing cells (Table 1 and Fig. 2B). Neither E7 CVQ68-70AAA nor E7
79-83 was significantly better than empty vector at inducing S phase in differentiated HFKs (Table 1 and Fig. 2B), despite the fact that these mutant E7s inactivate Rb (28). Cells expressing E7 CVQ68-70AAA had a more pronounced G1 arrest than cells expressing E7
79-83, which accumulated in both G1 and G2 (Table 1), suggesting that the two E7 C-terminal mutations may have subtle differences. Both E7 CVQ68-70AAA and E7
79-83 were expressed at somewhat reduced levels compared to that of E7 WT in a previous study (28); however, increasing their expression levels by using the pBABE retroviral vector did not restore the ability to induce S phase in differentiated HFKs (data not shown). |
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TABLE 1. Cell cycle analysis of differentiated keratinocytes
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21-24, or E7 CVQ68-70AAA, and in HFKs maintained in growth medium (Fig. 2C). Together, these data suggest that the ability of E7 to inactivate Rb is not sufficient for induction of S phase and endoreduplication in differentiated HFKs and are consistent with the hypothesis that the C terminus of E7 must target additional G1 regulators.
E7 does not require an intact C terminus to bypass M0 in HMECs.
While E7 mutants that do not target Rb do not bypass M0 (22), the importance of the E7 C terminus in bypassing M0 has not been tested. To address whether the E7 C terminus has a role, pre-M0 cells were transduced with retroviral vectors expressing wild-type or mutated E7 proteins (21, 22). Cells were passaged at a 1:3 ratio until the vector control cells began to senesce at the M1 stage (around 11 weeks after G418 selection). Cell lysates and micrographs were collected periodically to evaluate the ability of E7 mutants to bypass M0 and prolong the HMEC life span. Entry into M0 was defined by cell morphology, a reduction in proliferation rate, and by the expression levels of p16 and cyclin A (9, 21, 22, 51). HMECs expressing vector or E7
21-24 entered M0 within the first week after G418 selection, exhibiting reduced proliferation relative to that of HMECs expressing E7 WT (Fig. 3A), characteristic flattened cell morphology (Fig. 3B), and decreased cyclin A and increased p16 levels compared to levels in untransduced pre-M0 cells (Fig. 3C). As previously shown (21, 22), p21 levels were low or undetectable in M0 cells (Fig. 3C).
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FIG. 3. Induction of HMEC proliferation by E7. (A) HMEC passage number relative to time in culture. Times of transduction and G418 selection are indicated. The first passage after drug selection (passage 4) was designated week 0. (B) Micrographs showing HMEC morphologies at different time points. The passage number is indicated on each image. (C) Western blots probed with anti-p16 (Pharmingen), anti-p21 (Ab-2; Calbiochem), anti-cyclin A (BF-683; Pharmingen), anti-cdc25a (F-6; Santa Cruz Biotechnology), and antinucleolin (as a loading control, C23; Santa Cruz Biotechnology). (D) Western blot probed with an anti-Rb antibody (G3-245; Pharmingen) comparing Rb levels in E7-expressing HMECs with that of untransduced, pre-M0 HMECs (first lane).
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The E7 C terminus contributes to the ability of E7 to delay M1 in HMECs. After several weeks, the proliferation of HMECs expressing E7 CVQ68-70AAA noticeably slowed relative to that of HMECs expressing E7 WT (Fig. 3A), though cell morphology (Fig. 3B) and cyclin A levels were similar to those of E7 WT-expressing cells (Fig. 3C and data not shown). In contrast, E7 E46A was as efficient as E7 WT in driving HMEC proliferation throughout the experiment (Fig. 3A). Decreasing levels of cdc25a have been associated with the approach to M1 (46); however, the reduced proliferation of E7 CVQ68-70AAA-expressing HMECs did not correlate with reduced levels of cdc25a (Fig. 3C and data not shown). HMECs expressing E7 were previously shown to grow in tightly packed groups as they neared M1 (22). HMECs expressing E7 WT, E7 E46A, or E7 CVQ68-70AAA eventually grew in tightly packed groups as they aged (Fig. 3B). However, this occurred approximately 11 passages and 3 weeks earlier in HMECs expressing E7 CVQ68-70AAA than in E7 WT-expressing cells (around passage 15 for E7 CVQ68-70AAA and passage 26 for E7 WT) (Fig. 3B and data not shown). Large, flat cells became apparent in all three populations as they approached M1. This also occurred at an earlier passage for HMECs expressing E7 CVQ68-70AAA (around passage 18 versus passage 29 for E7 WT) (Fig. 3B and data not shown). At the end of the experiment, HMECs expressing E7 WT, E7 E46A, and E7 CVQ68-70AAA were at passages 30, 31, and 23, respectively (Fig. 3A). Thus, E7 CVQ68-70AAA can destabilize Rb and bypass M0 in HMECs but is less efficient than E7 WT in postponing M1.
HMECs expressing vector or E7
21-24 escaped M0 by downregulating p16 expression (Fig. 3C, week 7, and data not shown) and proliferated for a number of passages before both populations again were dominated by large, flat cells (Fig. 3B). Both post-M0 cultures had increased levels of p21 compared to those of their M0 predecessors and the untransduced, pre-M0 cells (Fig. 3C and data not shown). At the end of the experiment, HMECs expressing vector and E7
21-24 were at passages 16 and 20, respectively (Fig. 3A). Together, these data suggest that both Rb-related and Rb-independent activities of E7, separated temporally in HMECs, contribute to the extension of the HMEC life span.
E7 bypasses G1 arrest of HFKs imposed by a p21-derived peptide. E7 inactivates p21 in vitro (23, 31) depending on an interaction with the C terminus of p21 (23). To determine more directly whether mutations in the E7 C terminus affect the ability of E7 to bypass p21-mediated cell cycle arrest, we employed a previously characterized p21-derived peptide that contains the C-terminal 20 amino acids of p21 fused to an internalization peptide derived from the Antennapedia protein of Drosophila melanogaster (Fig. 4A) (3, 7, 17). This region of p21, which contains the second cyclin binding site and the PCNA binding site of p21, is sufficient to inhibit G1/S-phase CDK activity and arrest cells in G1 (1, 3, 11). The PCNA binding site was mutated to focus on the CDK-inhibitory function of p21, which is responsible for blocking S-phase entry (50). This assay was employed because it allows the control of p21 levels to be independent of other effects induced by either DNA damage or differentiation, because it allows efficient uptake into primary cells (3, 7, 17), and because the region of p21 contained in the peptide was shown by mutagenesis studies to be sufficient for E7 binding (reference 23 and data not shown).
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FIG. 4. Bypass of p21 peptide-induced G1 arrest. (A) Schematic of the p21 peptide. The p21 portion is boxed in white, and the internalization domain is boxed in black. The PCNA site is mutated (indicated by the gray A) such that only the cyclin/CDK-inhibitory site (labeled cyclin 2) is active. (B) Cell cycle profiles of HFKs treated with p21 peptide, with scrambled control peptide, or with water. pep., peptide. (C) Western blot showing Rb phosphorylation state in p21 peptide- or control-treated HFKs. cont., control peptide. (D) S-phase induction inp21 peptide-treated HFKs expressing E7 mutants. The S-phase fraction of peptide-treated HFKs expressing vector, E7 WT, or mutated E7 proteins was measured and graphed normalized to those of water-treated controls. Shown is a summary of the results of three experiments (raw data are presented in Table 2). Error bars represent standard deviations.
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The integrity of CR1 and the C terminus of E7 are required for overriding p21 peptide-mediated arrest.
The C-terminal half of E7 was sufficient for p21 inactivation in vitro (23), but there was evidence that multiple regions of E7 may contribute to the inactivation (23, 31). To determine whether the failure of E7 CVQ68-70AAA and E7
79-83 to bypass cell cycle arrest (28; present study) is associated with a failure to inactivate p21, HFKs expressing these E7 mutants were treated with p21 peptide. CR1 and LXCXE mutants were tested as well. E7 WT and E7 E46A reproducibly induced S phase following peptide treatment (Fig. 4D and Table 2). In contrast, E7 CVQ68-70AAA and, unexpectedly, E7 H2P were not significantly better than vector at inducing S phase (Fig. 4D and Table 2). Results with E7
79-83 were variable, suggesting again that E7 CVQ68-70AAA and E7
79-83 may not be functionally equivalent. Interestingly, E7
21-24 induced S phase following peptide treatment (Fig. 4D and Table 2), suggesting that the targeting of Rb and p21 by E7 are genetically separable activities. Thus, CR1 and the LXCXE motif are important for efficient Rb inactivation (25, 28) while CR1 and the C terminus are important for targeting p21.
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TABLE 2. Cell cycle analysis of keratinocytes treated with p21 peptides
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21-24, and E7 CVQ68-70AAA), while the CR2 peptide had no effect (Fig. 5B and C), confirming previous results indicating that binding of E7 to p21 is mediated primarily by the E7 C terminus (23). That E7 mutants unable to bypass p21 peptide-imposed arrest could still bind p21 suggests, however, that the mechanism of p21 inactivation may be more complicated than was previously thought (23, 31). In addition, it is possible that CR1 or C-terminal mutations alter the nature of the p21-E7 interaction such that p21 is not inhibited.
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FIG. 5. Interaction between E7 and p21. (A) Autoradiograph showing binding of 35S-IVT-p21 to recombinant His-tagged E7 proteins. (B and C) Competitive binding experiments showing that E7 WT, E7 21-24, and E7 CVQ68-70AAA bind p21 with similar avidities. (B) Reactions were carried out as described for panel A but with 0 µM (lanes 1 to 3, 7, 10, and 13), 0.1 µM (lanes 4, 8, and 11), or 1 µM (lanes 5, 9, and 12) p21 peptide or 1 µM E7 CR2 peptide (lane 6) included in the reaction mixtures. Shown are the results of a representative experiment (B) and a summary of two experiments (C), where the amount of p21 remaining bound to the E7 proteins was measured via phosphorimager analysis and graphed relative to the amount of p21 bound in the absence of competitor. Error bars represent standard deviations.
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FIG. 6. CDK2 activity in E7-expressing, differentiated HFKs. CDK2 activity of HFKs was assessed after 1 (A) or 5 (B) days of growth in differentiation medium (DM). Histone H1 (HH1) was used as the substrate. Percentages of kinase activity (% activity) relative to the levels retained by matched control cells maintained in growth medium (GM) are indicated. The lower blots in each panel are lysate input controls probed with an anti-actin antibody (I19; Santa Cruz).
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21-24 maintained a significant level of CDK2 activity at the earlier time point (Fig. 6A), consistent with the ability of E7
21-24 to inactivate p21 in the peptide assay (Fig. 4D and Table 2). However, CDK2 activity was diminished after 5 days (Fig. 6B). Significantly, p21 is not the only cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor induced during HFK differentiation. p27kip1 and, later, p15ink4b, are also induced (2). While p27 directly inhibits CDK2 activity, p15 was proposed to indirectly block CDK2 activity in differentiated HFKs by inducing the redistribution of p21 and/or p27 to cyclin/CDK2 complexes (2). Possibly, E7
21-24 may not able to counteract all of the CDK inhibitors present at later times during HFK differentiation. Taken together, the results of the experiments presented here demonstrate that the ability of E7 to deregulate epithelial cell cycle control coincides with the ability to target both Rb and p21. This has an interesting and previously uncharacterized parallel with adenovirus E1A, which induces DNA synthesis in differentiated cells in a manner dependent on inactivation of both Rb and p21 (38). These results also support the idea that the E7 C terminus, and perhaps CR1, have Rb-independent activities required for bypassing cell cycle arrest in normal human epithelial cells. E7 targets at least two regulators of the G1/S transition, Rb and p21, but while the ability of E7 to inactivate either Rb or p21 appears not to be sufficient for E7 to bypass cell cycle arrest associated with DNA damage (16, 28), differentiation (16; present study), or HFK senescence (28), by targeting multiple regulators of the G1/S transition, E7 may ensure S-phase entry of HPV-infected epithelial cells.
Finally, the experiments reported here do not exclude a role for other E7 C-terminal activities in the bypass of cell cycle arrest. While this work was in progress, the E7 C terminus was reported to function in conjunction with the Rb-binding motif to induce cdc25a (41). A C-terminal mutation, L67R, prevented induction of cdc25a (41). Although this mutation is adjacent to CVQ68-70AAA, the mutations had differing effects on the ability of E7 to overcome Rb-mediated arrest of SAOS2 cells (8, 28), suggesting that they are not functionally equivalent. Induction of cdc25a likely did not contribute to the inhibition of p21 peptide-induced arrest, since E7
21-24 does not have the functional Rb-binding motif required for cdc25a induction. Nevertheless, the present study, together with other studies (31, 23, 41), has begun to determine which of the many biochemical and functional interactions mapped to the E7 C terminus contribute to the ability of E7 to subvert cell cycle control in normal human epithelial cells.
This work was supported by grant CA 64795 from the National Cancer Institute to D.A.G. J. O. Funk was supported by the Deutsche Groshungsgemeinschaft.
Present address: Laboratory of Molecular Tumor Biology, Department of Dermatology, University of ErlangenNuremberg, 91052 Erlangen, Germany. ![]()
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