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Journal of Virology, December 2002, p. 12940-12950, Vol. 76, No. 24
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.24.12940-12950.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Microbiology-Immunology, The Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois 60611,1 Laboratory of Clinical and Epidemiological Virology, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Rega Institute for Medical Research, 3000 Leuven, Belgium2
Received 4 June 2002/ Accepted 12 September 2002
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Nectin-1 and nectin-2, but not nectin-3 or nectin-4, can function with different specificities as entry receptors for mammalian alphaherpesviruses (5, 14, 22, 39). After initial binding of the virion via viral glycoprotein B (gB) or gC to heparan sulfate on the cell surface, nectin-1 or nectin-2 can mediate viral entry through interaction with viral gD, followed by fusion of the viral envelope with the cellular plasma membrane. The amino-terminal V-like domain has the critical determinants for binding to gD (4, 17, 20) and for viral entry (3, 4, 12, 25). Nectin-1 and nectin-2 have different specificities for wild-type alphaherpesviruses. While nectin-1 shows activity as a receptor for herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), HSV-2, pseudorabies virus (PRV), and bovine herpesvirus type 1 (BHV-1) (5, 14), nectin-2 mediates entry of HSV-2 and PRV but not that of HSV-1 or BHV-1 (39). Mutant strains of HSV-1 that have single amino acid substitutions at position 25 or 27 in gD (2, 7) can enter cells via both nectin-1 and nectin-2 (14, 22, 39).
Nectins and associated cytoplasmic proteins are components of cadherin-based adherens junctions in both epithelial and nonepithelial cells (37, 38). Some membrane-bound isoforms of the nectins contain in their cytoplasmic tail a carboxy-terminal PDZ-binding domain through which they can bind afadin, which itself binds to F-actin and
-catenin (28, 30). In the presence or absence of cadherin, nectin-1 and nectin-2 can engage in homotypic cis and trans interactions (28). Both molecules also show heterotypic trans interactions with other members of the nectin family. Nectin-1 and nectin-2 can bind to nectin-3 (31, 34), and nectin-1 binds to nectin-4 (32).
It appears that, for both nectin-1 and nectin-2, the V-like domain is important for viral entry (3-5, 12, 20, 24, 25) and nectin-nectin interactions (11, 18, 28, 32) and that regions critical for both activities may overlap. Also, soluble forms of viral gD were able to block cell adhesion mediated by nectin-1 homotypic trans interactions (18, 33) and to partially inhibit the binding of soluble forms of nectin-3 and nectin-4 to nectin-1 (11).
By use of hybrid molecules constructed from members of the nectin-CD155 family that differ in functional activities, it has been shown that regions critical to HSV entry are located in loops bounding the predicted C' beta strand in the V domain of both nectin-1 and nectin-2 (3, 24, 25) and that regions critical to heterotypic trans interactions are located within a region including the C-C'-C"-D beta strands in the V domain of nectin-1 (11) (Fig. 1). For both HSV entry and heterotypic trans interactions, numerous amino acid substitutions within the V domain but outside of these critical regions are tolerated. Mutations in one particular region of the V domains of both nectin-1 and nectin-2 have been shown to significantly reduce HSV entry activity (24, 25) but have not been tested for effects on trans interactions between nectins. A mutation in a different highly conserved region of the V-like domain of mouse nectin-2 has been shown to prevent homotypic trans interactions (28), but no information on viral entry activity was presented. In this study, we aimed to clarify the requirements for human nectin-1 and nectin-2 engagement in homotypic and heterotypic trans interactions and mediation of the entry of various alphaherpesviruses. We constructed nectin-1 and nectin-2 mutants with single amino acid changes in the V-like domain of the molecules on the basis of information from previous studies of mutations that were shown to have deleterious effects on HSV entry or homotypic trans interactions and on a nectin-2 V domain polymorphism reported in a public database. Viral entry properties, gD binding, nectin-3 binding, cellular localization indicative of homotypic trans interactions, and colocalization with gD were examined by expressing the receptor molecules in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, which normally lack alphaherpesvirus entry receptors. The results show that the structural requirements of the nectin activities examined partially overlap but differ.
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FIG. 1. Alignment of amino acid sequences in the N-terminal V-like domains of human nectin-1 (hNectin-1), human nectin-2 (hNectin-2), and mouse nectin-2 (mNectin-2). The proposed location of beta-strands (labeled A to G), based on a model of the poliovirus receptor (CD155) (15), is indicated above the sequences. Grey shading represents conserved amino acids in all three sequences. Mutated amino acids are indicated by black boxes. Dotted lines indicate the positions of the region I, II, and III mutants.
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CHO cells, provided by J. Esko (University of California, San Diego), were cultured in F12 medium with 10% fetal bovine serum, penicillin, and streptomycin.
Creation of mutant plasmids. Nectin-2 mutant plasmids were constructed from pMW20 (39), containing the coding region of nectin-2 in pcDNA3.1 (Invitrogen), by site-directed mutagenesis with the QuickChange kit (Stratagene). The same method was used to construct nectin-1 mutants from pBG38 (13), which contains the coding region of nectin-1 in pcDNA3.1. The plasmids and mutations are listed in Table 1.
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TABLE 1. Nectin-1 and nectin-2 mutations analyzed in this study
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Entry assays. CHO cells were grown to subconfluency in six-well tissue culture dishes and transfected with 1.5 µg of plasmid DNA and 5 µl of Lipofectamine (Gibco BRL Life Technologies). The cells were transferred to 96-well flat-bottom microtiter plates 24 h after transfection. Thirty-six hours after transfection, the cells were washed once with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) plus 0.1% glucose and 1% heat-inactivated calf serum. After addition of serial dilutions of virus prepared in PBS plus 0.1% glucose and 1% heat-inactivated calf serum, cells were incubated for 6 h at 37°C. Cells were washed three times with PBS containing 0.1 g of MgCl2 per liter and 0.1 g of CaCl2 per ml, incubated with PBS containing 3 mg of o-nitrophenyl-ß-D-galactopyranoside per liter and 0.5% NP-40 (Calbiochem), and read at 410 nm in a SpectraMax 250 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) reader (Molecular Devices) at various time intervals.
CELISA. The cell ELISA (CELISA) used for detection of receptor expression on the cell surface and binding of soluble gD was described in detail elsewhere (13). Briefly, CHO cells transfected as described above were subjected to a blocking step with PBS-3% bovine serum albumin (PBS-BSA) for 1 h at room temperature; this was followed by incubation with primary antibodies in 50 µl of PBS-BSA for 30 min at room temperature at the following dilutions: anti-nectin-1 monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) CK6, CK8, CK31, and CK41 (17, 18) at a 1:500 dilution and polyclonal rabbit anti-nectin-2 R146 serum (39) at a 1:500 dilution (R146 serum was preadsorbed against CHO cells at room temperature for 15 min before use). For detection of soluble gD binding, the cells were incubated with culture supernatants containing HSV-1 gD:Fc, HSV-1/Rid1 gD:Fc, or PRV gD:Fc at a concentration of 0.5 µg of gD:Fc per ml. Production of the gD:Fc hybrid proteins was done as described previously (12, 13). After washing, the cells were fixed with 2% formaldehyde and 0.2% glutaraldehyde for 10 min at room temperature, incubated with biotinylated secondary antibodies against mouse immunoglobulin G (IgG) or rabbit IgG (Sigma) at a 1:500 dilution, and subsequently incubated with AMDEX streptavidin-conjugated horseradish peroxidase (Amersham) at a 1:20,000 dilution in PBS-BSA with 0.1% Tween 20. After incubation with 3,3',5,5'-tetramethylbenzidine substrate (BioFX), the plates were read at 380 nm in a Victor ELISA reader (Perkin-Elmer).
Immunofluorescence assay. CHO cells were either singly transfected with plasmids encoding wild-type or variant forms of nectin-1 or nectin-2 or cotransfected with plasmids encoding one of the receptor variants and pCJ1 or pCJ3 (13), containing the coding region of HSV-1/Rid1 gD and HSV-1 gD, respectively, in pcDNA3.1 (Invitrogen). After transfection, cells underwent several rounds of selection with G418 (Invitrogen). Transfected cells were grown on coverslips in six-well tissue culture plates, washed once with PBS, fixed with methanol at -20°C for 5 min, and washed again with PBS. Nonspecific binding was blocked by incubation with 1% BSA in PBS for 5 min at 37°C, after which cells were washed with PBS for 5 min at room temperature. Incubation with primary antibodies occurred at 37°C for 25 min at the following concentrations: chicken polyclonal anti-HveC (nectin-1) serum (13) at 1:500, R146 rabbit polyclonal anti-HveB (nectin-2) serum (39) at 1:100, R7 rabbit anti-gD serum (16) at 1:500, anti-gD MAb DL6 (6) at 1:1,000. Cells were washed with PBS for 15 min at room temperature and incubated with the appropriate secondary antibody (Alexa Fluor 488 goat anti-chicken IgG, 488 goat anti-rabbit IgG, 568 goat anti-rabbit IgG, or 568 goat anti-mouse IgG, all from Molecular Probes, Eugene, Oreg.) at 37°C for 25 min at a 1:200 dilution. After incubation with a secondary antibody, cells were washed with PBS for 15 min at room temperature, mounted on microscope slides with Gelvatol (Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Allentown, Pa.) containing DABCO (Sigma Chemical Co.) at 1 mg/ml, and examined on an LSM510 confocal microscope (Zeiss).
Nectin-3:Fc binding. Plasmid pCFR3, containing the ectodomain of human nectin-3 fused to the Fc portion of human IgG (32), was provided by Marc Lopez (INSERM, Marseille, France). PEAK cells (EDGE BioSystems, Inc.) were grown to 50% confluency in Dulbecco's minimal essential medium (Invitrogen) containing 10% heat-inactivated serum, penicillin, and streptomycin; transfected with pCFR3 or COS Fc Link vector control (GlaxoSmithKline); and maintained in serum-free medium (OptiMEM; Invitrogen) for harvest of the culture supernatants after 24 h. CHO cells transfected with mutant forms of nectin-1 as described in the paragraph on entry assays underwent multiple rounds of selection with G418 (Invitrogen). Approximately 106 cells were washed once with Versene (Dow Chemical Company), detached with trypsin-EDTA (Life Technologies), and washed once with F12 medium containing 10% heat-inactivated calf serum and once with fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS) buffer (PBS with 1% BSA, 10 mM HEPES, and 0.01% sodium azide). Cells were incubated for 40 min at 4°C with 250 µl of FACS buffer containing a 1:5 dilution of the supernatant of PEAK cells transfected with either pCFR3 or the vector control and anti-nectin-1 MAb CK31 (17) at 1:500. After being washed once with FACS buffer, cells were incubated with a 1:100 dilution of the secondary antibodies, fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled goat anti-human IgG (Jackson Immunoresearch Laboratories), and allophycocyanin-labeled goat anti-mouse IgG (CalTag) for 40 min at 4°C and analyzed on a FACScalibur flow cytometer (Becton Dickinson).
Amino acid sequence accession numbers and nomenclature.
The protein sequences used as references for the numbering of amino acids in this report have GenBank accession numbers AAC23798 (human nectin-1
) and AAC23797 (human nectin-2
). We refer to these as wild-type sequences. Mutations were named in accordance with published recommendations (8, 9).
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Previous studies had demonstrated that a single amino acid substitution in region I of nectin-2 (M89F) and the equivalent substitution in nectin-1 (M85F), along with additional substitutions (QN76-77AA or N77A), could severely reduce the HSV entry activities of these receptors with no effect on PRV entry (24, 25). Plasmids expressing these mutant forms, as indicated in Table 1, were used in this study to assess the effects of these mutations on trans interactions important for cell adhesion. Plasmids expressing mutant nectins with amino acid substitutions in region II (R110P in nectin-1 and A126P in nectin-2) were constructed on the basis of a single-nucleotide polymorphism in the nectin-2 gene that was reported in the dbSNP database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/SNP) and that would result in the A126P mutation. It is not clear whether this polymorphism is found in human populations, but we did not detect it in genomic DNA samples from 200 healthy Caucasians (36) by examination of PCR products for loss of a diagnostic restriction endonuclease site (data not shown; see Materials and Methods). Finally, plasmids expressing mutant nectins with amino acid substitutions in region III (F129L in nectin-1 and F145L in nectin-2) were constructed on the basis of the report that the same substitution at the equivalent position in mouse nectin-2 reduced homophilic trans interactions (28). Plasmids expressing the human nectin mutant forms altered in regions II and III were used to assess both viral entry activities and nectin-nectin interactions.
To determine whether the mutant nectins were expressed on cell surfaces at levels equivalent to those of the wild-type forms, CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing the mutant and wild-type nectins and then incubated, prior to fixation, with a panel of MAbs specific for nectin-1 or a polyclonal antiserum specific for nectin-2 in a CELISA. MAb CK31 is directed against an epitope on the second Ig-like domain of nectin-1, a domain that is unaltered in all of the mutant forms, whereas the other anti-nectin-1 MAbs bind to the V domain (17, 18). As shown in Fig. 2A, the binding of CK31 to all three mutant forms was equal to or greater than that to wild-type nectin-1, indicating that all of the mutant forms were expressed on the cell surface and that their extracellular domains were accessible for binding. We reproducibly found that binding of CK31 to the F129L and QN76-77AA;M85F mutant forms was greater than that to wild-type nectin-1, suggesting that they were expressed on cell surfaces at levels higher than wild-type nectin-1 or were more accessible to the MAb. The levels of binding of the V domain-specific MAbs (CK6, CK8, and CK41), relative to that of CK31, were comparable for F129L, QN76-77AA;M85F, and wild-type nectin-1. In contrast, for R110P, binding of CK6 and CK8 was elevated and binding of CK41 was reduced relative to CK31 binding. CK6 and CK8 recognize linear epitopes in both native and denatured proteins, whereas CK41 binds to a conformational epitope that overlaps the gD-binding domain (17). These results reveal an altered conformation in the V domain for nectin-1 R110P.
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FIG. 2. Binding of antibodies to intact CHO cells expressing wild-type (WT) or mutant forms of nectin-1 (A) or nectin-2 (B). CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing the various forms of nectin-1 or nectin-2, replated in 96-well plates, and then incubated with anti-nectin-1 MAbs CK6, CK8, CK31, and CK41 (A) or with rabbit anti-nectin-2 R146 antiserum (B). Following washes to remove unbound antibodies, the cells were fixed and incubated with secondary antibodies and the horseradish peroxidase detection system described for the CELISA in Materials and Methods. Results of the nectin-1 and nectin-2 CELISAs are expressed as optical density (OD) at 380 nm and are means of triplicate measurements, with error bars indicating one standard deviation. The results shown are representative of three independent experiments.
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Localization of nectin-1 and nectin-2 mutant forms to cell-cell contact sites. CHO cells transfected with nectin-1 or nectin-2 were fixed with methanol and incubated with chicken polyclonal antibodies against human nectin-1 (13) or rabbit R146 antiserum against nectin-2 (39) and then with fluorescently labeled secondary antibodies. Expression of the wild-type forms of nectin-1 and nectin-2 was readily detectable, with little evidence of intracellular accumulation, except in cells well separated from other cells. There was clear localization of cell surface nectin-1 or nectin-2 to regions where adjacent transfected cells were in direct contact (Fig. 3), confirming previous results (28, 38). This localization to cell-cell contact regions correlates with the ability of the nectins to mediate cell-cell adhesion (38) and was observed only when the touching cells were both transfected, indicating that the nectin-nectin interactions are homotypic and not with endogenous forms of nectin.
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FIG. 3. Cellular localization of nectin-1 (A) and nectin-2 (B) in CHO cells transfected with plasmids expressing wild-type (WT) and mutant forms of each protein. The transfected cells were grown for a few generations in selective medium, as described in Materials and Methods, to obtain microcolonies of cells that did or did not express the relevant protein. Antibodies used were chicken anti-human nectin-1 (A) and rabbit anti-human nectin-2 polyclonal R146 serum (B), followed by Alexa 488 goat anti-chicken IgY or Alexa 488 goat anti-rabbit IgG (Molecular Devices). Bars, 10 µm.
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Heterotypic interactions between nectin-1 mutants and nectin-3:Fc. Nectin-3 can bind to nectin-1 or nectin-2 on adjacent cells (34), and this heterotypic trans interaction involves the N-terminal variable region-like domains of each (11, 32). The nectin-1-nectin-3 interaction, but not the nectin-1-nectin-1 or nectin-2-nectin-3 interaction, is of high enough affinity to be detected by flow cytometry for quantitation of the binding of one receptor in soluble form to cells expressing the other in membrane-bound form (32). In order to examine heterotypic trans interactions between the nectin-1 mutants and nectin-3, we expressed the nectin-1 mutants in CHO cells and quantitated the binding of nectin-3:Fc, a soluble form of the ectodomain of human nectin-3 fused to the Fc portion of human IgG (32). To control for differences in expression of the nectin-1 mutants in transfected cells, we gated only on cells that were positive for binding to antibody CK31 (17), a MAb specific for an epitope on the second Ig(C2)-like domain of human nectin-1 (Fig. 4A). Consistent with results shown in Fig. 2, fewer cells transfected with the R110P mutant scored positive for CK31 binding, in comparison with the other mutants. The binding of nectin-3:Fc to CK31-positive cells was reduced significantly only for the R110P mutant (Fig. 4C and D).
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FIG. 4. Nectin-3:Fc binding to wild-type (WT) and mutant forms of nectin-1 expressed in CHO cells. CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing wild-type or mutant forms of nectin-1 and incubated in selective medium for several generations. The cells were then detached and incubated with a mixture of MAb CK31 (17), directed against the second C-like domain of nectin-1, and supernatant containing nectin-3:Fc (32) or control supernatant. Only cells that were positive for binding to CK31 (gate R1 in panel A) were included in the subsequent analysis of nectin-3:Fc binding. Panels B and C show nectin-3:Fc binding to cells expressing wild-type nectin-1 and mutants QN76-77AA;M85F, R110P, and F129L, respectively. Cells that failed to bind CK31 were excluded from panels B and C. Panel D shows the ratios of nectin-3:Fc-positive cells to CK31-positive cells (the number of events in the upper right quadrant divided by the number of events in the upper and lower right quadrants) for each transfected cell type. Results are representative of three independent experiments, and error bars indicate one standard deviation within the experiment shown.
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FIG. 5. Viral entry activities of wild-type (WT) and mutant forms of nectin-1 (A) and nectin-2 (B). CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing wild-type or mutant forms of nectin-1 or nectin-2 as indicated, exposed to ß-galactosidase-expressing reporter viruses as indicated, and, after 6 h at 37°C, incubated with 3 mg of o-nitrophenyl-ß-D-galactopyranoside per ml and 0.5% NP-40 in PBS for quantitation of ß-galactosidase activity. Viral entry is expressed as optical density (OD) at 410 nm. The values shown are means of triplicate determinations. Error bars indicate one standard deviation; error bars are not shown if the standard deviation was less than 5% of the mean.
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TABLE 2. Summary of effects of nectin-1 and nectin-2 mutations
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To determine the effects of the nectin-1 mutations on binding of gD:Fc, CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing the wild-type or mutant receptors and then tested for the ability to bind the HSV-1, HSV-1/Rid1, or PRV form of gD:Fc. Figure 6 shows that the binding of HSV-1/Rid1 and PRV gD:Fcs correlated roughly with the viral entry activities of the receptors, whereas binding of HSV-1 gD:Fc was barely above the background levels for any of the mutant receptors despite the near-normal entry activity of nectin-1 mutant F129L. We have no explanation for the anomalous behavior of HSV-1 gD:Fc but note that the single amino acid substitution responsible for the Rid mutation (Q27P) seems to eliminate it. Since the nectin-1 mutations have similar effects on the entry of HSV-1 and HSV-1/Rid1, the binding of HSV-1/Rid1 gD:Fc probably reflects more faithfully the interactions of virion-associated gD with the various receptor forms.
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FIG. 6. Binding of viral gD:Fc to CHO cells expressing wild-type (WT) or mutant forms of nectin-1. CHO cells were transfected with plasmids expressing the various forms of nectin-1, replated in 96-well plates, and then incubated with culture supernatants containing the various forms of gD:Fc indicated. After washing away of unbound gD:Fc, the cells were fixed and incubated with an antibody specific for rabbit Fc and the horseradish peroxidase detection system described in Materials and Methods. Results are expressed as optical density (OD) at 380 nm and are means of triplicate measurements, with error bars indicating one standard deviation. The results shown were obtained with replicate cultures of the transfected cell populations analyzed for antibody binding as described in the legend to Fig. 2 and are representative of three independent experiments.
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FIG. 7. Cellular localization of nectin and viral gD in CHO cells cotransfected with HSV-1 gD and various forms of nectin-1 (A) and HSV-1/Rid1 gD and various forms of nectin-2 (B). Antibodies used were chicken polyclonal IgY against human nectin-1 and rabbit polyclonal serum R7 against HSV-1 gD in panel A and rabbit polyclonal R146 serum against human nectin-2 and DL6 mouse MAb against HSV-1 gD in panel B. Overlays show colocalization of nectin-1 and HSV-1 gD and colocalization of nectin-2 and HSV-1/Rid1 gD, respectively. Bars, 10 µm. WT, wild type.
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Recently, regions of nectin-1 that are critical for HSV entry and for the binding of nectin-3 and nectin-4 were mapped by analysis of nectin-1/CD155 hybrid molecules. The region found to confer HSV entry activity on hybrid molecules encompasses amino acids 64 to 94 (C-C'-C" beta strands and adjacent loops) of nectin-1 (3). The region found to confer binding activity for nectin-3 and nectin-4 encompasses amino acids 64 to 102 (C-C'-C"-D beta strands and adjacent loops) of nectin-1 (11). Of the mutations described here, only the region I nectin-1 mutations fall within the regions mapped in these studies. Interestingly, the region I nectin-1 mutant (QN76-77AA;M85F) had significantly reduced HSV entry activity (24) but exhibited wild-type ability to bind nectin-3:Fc (Fig. 4), indicating that the residues critical to the binding the ligands (gD and nectin-3) must differ. The region II nectin-1 mutant R110P had a reduced ability to mediate HSV entry and was impaired for nectin-3:Fc binding. It is probably irrelevant that amino acid 110 falls outside the regions mapped by hybrid analysis for HSV entry and nectin-3 binding because it seems likely that the R110P mutation affected the overall conformation of the V domain, as discussed below. The region III nectin-1 mutant F129L, also located outside the regions mapped by hybrid analysis for HSV entry and nectin-3 binding, appeared not to be impaired for HSV entry or for nectin-3:Fc binding, although it was impaired for binding to HSV-1 gD:Fc, but not for binding to HSV-1/Rid1 gD:Fc. As discussed below, several nectin-1 mutations have been shown to eliminate the binding of wild-type forms of soluble HSV-1 gD:Fc without eliminating viral entry activity. With the caveats mentioned here and below, the results presented here are consistent with the mapping studies performed by hybrid analysis and provide more detailed information about specific residues of both nectin-1 and nectin-2 that are critical for HSV entry, PRV and BHV-1 entry, and homotypic trans interactions of nectin-1 and nectin-2.
Region I mutations (nectin-1 QN76-77AA;M85F and nectin-2 M89F) severely reduced HSV entry activity, but not PRV entry (or BHV-1 entry for nectin-1), and appeared to have no effect on trans-homophilic interactions or on binding of nectin-3:Fc to nectin-1 (Table 2). On the other hand, the region III mutation in nectin-2 (F145L) significantly reduced all activities of nectin-2 (with only a partial reduction in HSV-2 entry) whereas the equivalent mutation in nectin-1 (F129L) reduced PRV and BHV-1 entry and somewhat reduced homotypic trans interactions but appeared to have no effect on HSV entry activities and nectin-3:Fc binding. Thus, the amino acid substitutions in region I disrupt only HSV entry for both nectin-1 and nectin-2 whereas the amino acid substitutions in region III disrupt PRV (and BHV-1) entry and homotypic trans interactions but have less of an effect on HSV entry, particularly for nectin-1. The model of a nectin V-like domain in Fig. 8 shows the proposed positions of these regions, indicating that their probable locations are in loops that could be adjacent. This suggests that a domain critical to HSV entry is skewed toward the loop between the C' and C" beta strands but overlaps the domain skewed toward the loop between the F and G beta strands that is critical to PRV and BHV-1 entry and homotypic trans interactions.
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FIG. 8. Three-dimensional model of the V domain of nectin-2, modeled after the V domain of CD155 (Protein Data Bank accession number 1DGI) with SWISS-MODEL in first-approach mode and the Swiss-Pdb Viewer (29). Some of the predicted beta strands are labeled (C', C", E, F, and G).
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Alphaherpesviruses that can enter cells via interactions with a particular cell surface receptor have, in general, been shown to express a form of gD capable of binding to this receptor. In fact, gD is clearly the viral ligand for the entry receptors identified to date (4, 13, 19, 20, 35, 39). In these cited studies, various forms of gD were shown to bind to membrane-bound or truncated soluble receptor forms, with the exception of nectin-2. Mutant forms of nectin-1 have been identified, however, that retain at least partial viral entry activity for all HSV strains and exhibit partial binding of HSV-1/Rid1 gD:Fc and no detectable binding of HSV-1 or HSV-2 gD:Fc (24). There is no explanation for these findings, but they have been confirmed here, as shown in Fig. 6. Unfortunately, there is no good way of assessing the ability of authentic gD in virions to interact with the membrane-bound mutant receptors because binding of virus to cells is mediated by other glycoproteins interacting with heparan sulfate.
Confocal microscopy of cells expressing membrane-bound forms of both gD and wild-type or mutant forms of the nectins provided another approach by which to assess gD-receptor interactions. From the results presented in Fig. 7, we can conclude that there are interactions between wild-type nectin-2 and HSV-1/Rid1 gD whereas none were evident between the region I mutant and gD, consistent with the loss of HSV entry activity. Some interactions between the region III mutant and HSV-1/Rid1 gD were also evident, despite the loss of entry activity. The images could be misleading and, in any event, are in no way quantitative. It is also possible that weak interactions detectable by microscopy would not be sufficient for viral entry. In the case of nectin-1 and the nectin-1 mutants, all forms of receptor exhibited some colocalization with HSV-1 and HSV-1/Rid1 gD, even the region I mutant most impaired for HSV entry. In previous studies, we showed that wild-type nectin-1, when coexpressed with HSV-1 gD, remains detectable on the cell surface but loses the ability to bind to soluble HSV-1 gD:Fc (13). This indicates that cell-associated gD can block the gD-binding domain of nectin-1 by trans interactions between cells, cis interactions within the same cell, or both. A similar conclusion was drawn on the basis of results showing that coexpression of HSV-1 gD and nectin-1 reduced the cell surface binding of an anti-nectin-1 MAb specific for an epitope overlapping the gD-binding domain while enhancing the binding of another MAb specific for one of the C-like domains (18). All of these results, taken together, suggest that the colocalization of gD and nectin evident from confocal microscopy are indicative of gD-nectin interactions relevant to viral entry, at least for the wild-type receptors. Some of the mutations may impair entry without completely eliminating colocalization detectable by microscopy.
Our results indicate that structural requirements of the nectins for HSV entry, PRV and BHV-1 entry, and homotypic and heterotypic trans interactions are all different despite the evidence suggesting overlap in these various contact sites. Our results also define more precisely the specific regions of the nectins that are critical to entry of the different alphaherpesviruses and to homotypic trans interactions (Table 2). This information could, at least theoretically, be exploited in the design of antiviral agents that target the entry process while interfering as little as possible with the normal cellular functions of the nectins.
This work was supported by grants R37 AI36293 and R01 AI049394 from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. F.S. was supported in part by a fellowship of the Belgian-American Educational Foundation/D. Collen Research Foundation. W.M.M. was supported by Public Health Service fellowship F32 GM19765.
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(PRR2
or HveB) and nectin2
are low-efficiency mediators for entry of herpes simplex virus mutants carrying the Leu25Pro substitution in glycoprotein D. J. Virol. 74:1267-1274.
-catenin. J. Biol. Chem. 277:18868-18874.
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