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Journal of Virology, July 2003, p. 7936-7944, Vol. 77, No. 14
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.14.7936-7944.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Institut für Virologie,1 Institut für Medizinische Biometrie und Epidemiologie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, 35037 Marburg, Germany2
Received 26 February 2003/ Accepted 24 April 2003
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Some of the factors expressed by the virus have been studied extensively regarding their impact on cellular transcription, mostly after overexpression of single proteins (33). However, little is known about the activity of cellular genes in the context of a productive adenovirus infection. Although one would intuitively assume that the massive activation of the major late promoter within the replication centers would exhaust a number of cellular transcription factors and thereby widely affect the expression of cellular genes, only a small set of cellular mRNA species was previously analyzed individually in this regard (24, 32). cDNA arrays represent a novel tool to perform a search of differentially expressed genes on a large scale, and this technology appears suitable to identify cellular genes that respond to adenovirus infection.
The most widely analyzed system to study adenovirus infection is represented by HeLa cells, infected with adenovirus type 5, and one of the commonly used strains of this virus is dl309 (18). HeLa cells are derived from a cervical carcinoma, and this tumor species was the first target of an attempt to perform oncolytic therapy with adenovirus (34). As a starting point to reveal the impact of adenovirus infection on cellular gene expression, we used this system and compared cellular gene expression between mock-infected and adenovirus-infected cells after 24 h, using cDNA microarrays. Relatively few genes were found differentially regulated, whereas most genes analyzed largely maintained their expression levels despite the presence of replicating adenovirus.
myc was one of the genes downregulated in infected cells. The product of this gene is a widely studied oncoprotein, overexpressed in numerous tumor species. It is capable of regulating cell proliferation, apoptosis, transcription, and possibly DNA repair (1, 10, 26). In the past, conflicting results had been reported regarding the positive or negative regulation of myc by adenovirus and its E1A gene product (9, 16, 23, 24, 32, 39, 42). However, it is clear that E1A and MYC have overlapping functions and interaction partners. Both proteins can stimulate cell proliferation, and both are inducers of apoptosis (5). Further, both activate the expression of p14/ARF and induce accumulation of p53 (8). Also, both induce the expression of transcriptionally active p73 (47). Finally, E1A as well as MYC was found to interact with a cofactor of transcription, TRRAP (12, 28). However, little is known about the possibility of mutual regulation between adenovirus gene products and MYC.
We found that adenovirus infection influences the expression of myc in two opposite ways, i.e., reduction of its mRNA and stabilization at the protein level. When MYC was allowed to accumulate in excess, it inhibited the replication of adenovirus DNA. Hence, adenovirus and MYC interact at multiple levels, and these interactions may affect the efficiency of virus replication.
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Array hybridization and evaluation. The expression of cellular genes during adenovirus infection was analyzed with microarrays. Experimental procedures are described as follows, according to the "minimum information about a microarray experiment (MIAME)" standards (4).
(i) Experimental design. HeLa cells (1.4 x 107) were infected with adenovirus type 5, strain dl309, at a multiplicity of infection of 10. Detection of the adenovirus E2A protein by immunofluorescence (43) in a separate experiment revealed that virtually 100% of the cells were infected under these conditions (data not shown). We analyzed the same number of mock-infected cells in parallel. After 24 h, the cells were harvested and total RNA was prepared, yielding two samples. In a second experiment, another set of two samples was prepared according to the same protocol but independently of the first experiment. Each sample of RNA was labeled by reverse transcription and incorporation of two different fluorescent dyes. Four cDNA microarrays were hybridized on two different days. Each day, a dye-swap experiment was done. Since each cDNA species was spotted twice on each array, eight hybridizations were carried out for every cDNA clone, each with differently labeled probes derived from infected and noninfected samples.
(ii) Array design. Glass slides (Corning Inc.; GAPS amino silane-coated slides, catalog no. 2549) were spotted with PCR-amplified cDNA clones. The templates used were obtained from Invitrogen/Research Genetics, and their identity corresponds to the GF200 series available from this company, with some modifications. The exact list of genes examined and the results obtained for each of them will be made available at http://www.med.uni-marburg.de/wwwmzh/viro/dobbelst/agdobb.htm. Each PCR product was spotted twice, in different regions of one array.
(iii) Samples. Total RNA was prepared from mock-infected or adenovirus-infected HeLa cells with Trizol reagent (Invitrogen). Fifty micrograms of RNA was annealed to 4 µg of an oligo(dT) 15-mer in 37 µl of water by being heated to 65°C and cooled to room temperature. Reverse transcription was carried out using Superscript II (Invitrogen) reverse transcriptase in a 62-µl volume of the manufacturer's buffer, in the presence of dATP, dGTP, and dTTP (161 µM each), as well as 16 µM nonconjugated dCTP and 16 µM dCTP that was coupled to the dye Cy3 or Cy5 (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech; PA 53021 and PA 55021, respectively). After incubation for 10 min at 25°C and 120 min at 37°C, the obtained polynucleotides were purified by being annealed to a silica matrix, with a PCR purification kit (Qiagen). Each sample was mixed with 10 µg of human cot1 DNA (Invitrogen) and ethanol precipitated. The precipitate was dissolved in 10 mM Tris-Cl (pH 8.0), boiled for 3 min, chilled rapidly on ice, further denatured in 200 mM NaOH for 10 mM at 37°C, and ethanol precipitated. Before hybridization, the precipitate was dissolved in 24 µl containing 4.2x SSC (1x SSC corresponds to 150 mM sodium chloride and 15 mM sodium citrate, pH 7) and 1.7% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), as well as polydeoxyadenosine (octamers and 20-mers, 0.21 mg/ml each). Each of the two pairs of RNA samples was reverse transcribed, once incorporating Cy3 and once incorporating Cy5 dye.
(iv) Hybridizations. Arrays were prehybridized for 20 min at 56°C in a solution containing 1% bovine serum albumin, 3x SSC, and 0.1% SDS. After being washed with water, the array was dried by brief centrifugation. The hybridization sample (specified above) was boiled for 2 min and immediately incubated with the array for approximately 16 h at 56°C in a humid chamber. Four washing steps were carried out, each for 5 min at room temperature: 1x SSC-0.1% SDS, 0.1x SSC-0.1% SDS, 0.1x SSC, and H2O. The array was dried by brief centrifugation.
(v) Measurements. The arrays were scanned using a laser source and fluorescence detection device (Genitic Micro Systems, now Affymetrix; array scanner, model 418). Quantification matrices were obtained by extracting the spot intensities from scanned images with ImaGene 3.0 software (BioDiscovery Inc., Marina Del Rey, Calif.). Eight spots corresponding to each cDNA clone were analyzed, for comparison of infected and noninfected cells. Since the labeling reaction was carried out using an oligo(dT) primer, mRNA species that do not contain a poly(A) tail (i.e., histone mRNAs) were not further evaluated.
(vi) Evaluation and normalization. For each spot, median signals and background intensities for both channels were obtained. To account for spot differences, the background corrected ratios of the two channels were calculated. Following the annotation of reference 46, we used the log ratio M = log2R/G and the mean log intensity A = log2[(RG)0.5], where R and G denote the measured fluorescence intensities after background subtraction for the Cy5 and Cy3 dyes, respectively. To balance the fluorescence intensities for the two dyes, as well as to allow the comparison of expression levels across experiments, the raw data were standardized. We used an intensity-dependent standardization as described in reference 46 to correct for inherent and random bias on each chip (the Lowess scatter-plot smoother). As each gene was spotted twice on the chip, and four arrays were analyzed, mean log ratios M for each gene were calculated. To find differently expressed genes, the genes were sorted by the d statistic introduced by Tusher et al., and the computed exchangeability factor s0 for this experiment was 1.26 (41). All chips had a signal-to-background ratio above 3 (a ratio below 2 indicates poor-quality chips) and an average local background intensity below 500 (arbitrary units, 9 on the log scale in Fig. 1). Less than 1.6% of the spots had poor within-chip reproducibility (more-than-fourfold differences between spot replicates or negative values).
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FIG. 1. Expression levels of 4,600 genes in response to adenovirus infection. Arrays were hybridized with cDNA pools derived from adenovirus-infected and mock-infected HeLa cells. Cells were infected at a multiplicity of infection of 10, for 24 h, followed by RNA preparation and array hybridization. The mean log2 ratio M of signal intensities (with virus versus without virus, eight spots for each gene on four different microarrays) is plotted against the average signal intensity A (logarithmic scale, arbitrary units) for each gene under examination.
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Assessment of adenovirus DNA replication. Infected cells were harvested, followed by preparation of genomic DNA (Qiagen) and semiquantitative PCR. The primers and PCR conditions were the same as those used to quantify the E1A mRNA levels (see above).
Immunoblotting. Proteins were separated on SDS-polyacrylamide gels and transferred to nitrocellulose, followed by incubation with antibodies in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) containing 5% milk powder and 0.1% Tween 20. Peroxidase-coupled secondary antibodies (whole immunoglobulin G; Jackson) were then detected by chemiluminescence (Pierce). Monoclonal mouse antibodies were against adenovirus E1A (Ab-1; Calbiochem), adenovirus E2A (clone B6-6; obtained from J. Flint), MYC (clone 9E10; Santa Cruz Biotechnology), and actin (clone C-2; Santa Cruz Biotechnology).
Immunofluorescence. Cells were seeded in chamber slides (Nunc) suitable for microscopy. They were infected as described above, followed by fixation with paraformaldehyde (4% in PBS; 15 min). They were permeabilized with Triton X-100 (0.2% in PBS; 25 min) and incubated with a monoclonal antibody to adenovirus E2A-72 kDa (clone B6-6). The primary mouse antibody was visualized with a secondary antibody coupled to the dye Alexa 594 (Molecular Probes). Before being mounted (Fluoprep; bioMérieux), the cell nuclei were briefly stained with 4',6'-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI).
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TABLE 1. Cellular genes differentially expressed upon adenovirus infectiona
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FIG. 2. Independent quantification of selected mRNA species by RT-PCR. The mRNA levels of the indicated genes from mock-infected (m) and adenovirus-infected (v) HeLa and H1299 cells were determined in parallel by reverse transcription and semiquantitative PCR. Where possible, PCR primers were designed to span at least one intron, and in these cases, the expression levels determined reflect mRNA. In other cases, i.e., TOB-1, CD24, SPUVE, and NPTX1, PCR products correspond to a sequence within one intron, therefore reflecting pre-mRNA and mRNA from the respective genes. The reaction was allowed to proceed for the indicated numbers of PCR cycles, followed by agarose gel electrophoresis and staining with ethidium bromide. The factor of differential expression, as determined by array hybridization, is indicated for comparison, with arrows indicating up- or downregulation upon virus infection. Agreement between the result of array analysis and that of RT-PCR is indicated by "+."
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FIG. 3. Influence of adenovirus mutants and DNA replication on cellular gene expression. (A) Impact of adenovirus mutants on the levels of selected cellular mRNA species. HeLa cells were infected with the indicated mutants (lacking E1 or E4 gene products as marked) at the indicated multiplicity of infection, for 24 h, followed by RNA preparation (the positions of 28S, 18S, and 5S rRNAs are indicated) and semiquantitative RT-PCR amplification of the indicated mRNA species, as described in the legend to Fig. 2. (B) Dependence of selected cellular mRNA levels on adenovirus DNA replication. HeLa cells were infected with adenovirus dl309 for 24 h (multiplicity of infection = 500), and ara-C was added 3 h postinfection to a final concentration of 20 µg/ml where indicated. This was followed by RNA preparation and semiquantitative RT-PCR amplification of the indicated RNA species, as described in the legend to Fig. 2. In parallel, the levels of E1A protein were determined by immunoblot analysis.
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MYC is stabilized during adenovirus infection. Since MYC is known as a regulator of cell growth and transcription, sharing a number of properties with the adenovirus E1A oncoprotein, we decided to explore the interplay of adenovirus and MYC in more detail. We asked whether the negative regulation of myc mRNA by adenovirus infection was accompanied by a corresponding change in the MYC protein levels. To test this, MYC was detected by immunoblot analysis in mock-infected and adenovirus-infected cells. Surprisingly, it was found that the amount of MYC protein was only marginally affected by adenovirus infection (Fig. 4, compare lanes 1 and 5). This discrepancy between protein and mRNA levels suggested that a change in the biological half-life of MYC protein might compensate for the reduction of mRNA. To address this, the cells were treated with an inhibitor of protein synthesis, cycloheximide. After 4 h of treatment, the levels of MYC were strongly reduced in mock-infected cells, apparently due to intracellular degradation. In contrast, the levels of MYC remained virtually unchanged when the cells had been infected with adenovirus. This effect was independent of adenovirus E1B-55 kDa, E4orf6, or E4orf3, since virus mutants lacking these genes were equally capable of stabilizing MYC. In contrast, a first-generation adenovirus vector, lacking the E1 genes and unable to replicate, did not detectably affect the degradation of MYC compared to that for mock-infected cells (Fig. 4).
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FIG. 4. Impact of adenovirus infection on the half-life of MYC. HeLa cells were transduced with the indicated adenovirus mutants, at a multiplicity of infection of 20. Twenty hours later, the cells were treated with cycloheximide (CHX; 50 µg/ml) or mock treated as indicated. Four hours later, the cells were harvested, followed by immunoblot detection of MYC. ß-Gal, beta-galactosidase.
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FIG. 5. Influence of adenovirus E1A protein on the stability of MYC. HeLa cells were transfected with an expression plasmid for E1A or the corresponding empty vector plasmid (pCDNA3). Twenty hours later, the cells were treated with cycloheximide (CHX; 50 µg/ml) or mock treated as indicated. Four hours later, the cells were harvested, followed by immunoblot detection of MYC and actin.
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FIG. 6. Effect of MYC overexpression on adenovirus replication. For all experiments, HeLa cells were infected with a mixture of wild-type adenovirus dl309 (multiplicity of infection = 1) and a first-generation adenovirus vector to express either beta-galactosidase (20) or MYC (29) (each at a multiplicity of infection of 20). (A) Expression of MYC was verified by immunoblot analysis at the time points indicated. Note that endogenous MYC (upon transduction with the beta-galactosidase expression vector) was not detected at this level of sensitivity but only on longer exposures (Fig. 4). (B) The cells were harvested at 24 and 48 h postinfection as indicated, followed by the quantification of virus yield. This was determined by freeze-thawing the cells, infecting fresh cell monolayers with serial dilutions of the lysate, and staining infected cells by immunofluorescence, with antibodies to E2A-72 kDa. The number of infectious units obtained per cell, determined in at leastthree independent experiments, is shown (columns) along with the standard deviation (bars). (C) The cells were harvested after 6, 8, and 11 h postinfection as indicated, followed by the preparation of total RNA and analysis by agarose gel electrophoresis (the positions of 28S and 18S rRNAs are indicated). The mRNAs of E1A and E2A were amplified by RT-PCR for the indicated numbers of temperature cycles. (D) The cells were harvested at the indicated time points postinfection, followed by immunoblot detection of the E2A-72-kDa DNA binding protein. (E) At the indicated time points postinfection, a portion of the adenovirus genome was amplified by semiquantitative PCR for 15 or 20 cycles. Ad, adenovirus; ß-Gal, beta-galactosidase.
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FIG. 7. Effect of MYC overexpression on the formation of adenovirus replication centers. (A) HeLa cells were infected with a combination of dl309 and expression vectors as in Fig. 6. After 24 h, the cells were immunostained with an antibody to the E2A-72-kDa DNA binding protein. The cells were counterstained with DAPI. (B) After treatment as for panel A, at least 200 cells were scored and divided into two categories: (i) spherical, indicating that at least 10 distinct spherical formations stained with an anti-E2A antibody were observed in the nucleus of a cell, and (ii) diffuse, indicating that fewer than nine distinct spherical formations or an entirely diffuse staining pattern of E2A was observed. ß-Gal, beta-galactosidase.
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Several cellular genes have been reported earlier to be modified by adenovirus infection. In agreement with our results, the amount of myc mRNA was downregulated in KB cells infected by adenovirus type 2 (32), a system similar to the one described here. The same study suggested that major alterations occur in the general transcription patterns of adenovirus-infected cells. Based on our findings, however, these alterations appear to be more limited than expected, with the caveats discussed below.
One previous study used arrays to look at changes of cellular transcription brought about by adenovirus (14). However, this report analyzed a smaller number of genes (588 total, 98 detectable) in murine liver after transduction with a nonreplicative adenovirus vector, a system that has little in common with our study. Correspondingly, differentially expressed genes were identified that are mostly involved in the interferon response. We propose that these genes may have been induced as an indirect effect of virus infection and the subsequent immune response, not necessarily as a direct consequence of immediate virus-cell interaction.
In general, the choice of target cells certainly affects the selection of genes that are dysregulated by adenovirus infection. For instance, primary cells can be expected to respond more extensively to transforming adenovirus proteins, such as the E1 and E4 gene products, than transformed cells that already carry alterations in cellular growth control pathways, e.g., the Rb and p53 pathways. The study presented here was mainly aiming at elucidating the alterations of cellular gene expression during the late phase of infection, when replication centers are formed and the early-to-late switch of viral transcription is complete. Accordingly, it is very possible that different numbers and species of genes would have been found dysregulated at different time points postinfection. Further, it should be kept in mind that the number of cellular genes examined represents no more than one-sixth of the total estimated to comprise the human genome. Finally, the cDNA array methodology, which estimates changes in steady-state RNA concentrations, is inherently limited in its ability to detect inhibition of gene expression: substantial decreases in RNA levels will occur only when the mRNA has a relatively short half-life. All these considerations argue that more than the genes found in this screen can be expected to be differentially regulated by adenovirus infection.
Currently, it is unknown by what mechanism(s) adenovirus infection suppresses the expression of the genes identified in our screen. The elimination of suppression by an inhibitor of DNA replication suggests that the onset of the late phase is a prerequisite for the regulation of these genes. Perhaps the virus replication centers absorb transcription factors that would otherwise allow the efficient transcription of the identified cellular genes. If this is true, however, it is surprising that not more cellular genes are affected. Thus, if any cellular transcription factors are removed from target genes by adenovirus infection to an extent that reduces their overall activity, then such transcription factors appear to be essential for the function of relatively few cellular promoters. If productive adenovirus infection leaves most cellular genes transcriptionally active, it appears that the continuing cellular transcription does not negatively influence adenovirus replication. This may be explained, at least in part, by the known ability of adenovirus to block cellular gene expression on the translation level. The E1B-55 kDa and E4orf6 proteins mediate this host cell shutdown phenomenon through their impact on mRNA export and translation (2, 3, 15, 31, 33), although some cellular mRNA species can escape this block and still yield protein (45).
Direct effects of E1A on the transcription and mRNA levels of myc have been previously reported, sometimes resulting in upregulation (16, 23, 39), sometimes in repression of myc (9, 32, 42). It should be noted that most of these studies were confined to promoter analysis in transient reporter assays. Such assays can sometimes yield misleading results, since they do not accurately reflect the situation of a chromosomally integrated, chromatin-packed gene. Moreover, reporter constructs frequently contain only a subset of the regulatory elements relevant to control gene expression, due to their limited size. In any case, E1A alone did not appear to be sufficient to downregulate myc mRNA in our study (Fig. 3B).
We have identified E1A as a factor that mediates the stabilization of MYC. The question remains by what mechanism(s) this occurs. Initial mapping studies revealed that several activities of E1A might cooperate to achieve this effect (our unpublished observations). Since E1A interacts with the transcriptional coactivator and acetyltransferase p300, it is a possibility that sequestration of p300 by E1A might alter MYC stability. This concept is supported by the finding that depletion of p300 upregulates MYC (21). However, in our hands, an E1A mutant lacking the capability to bind p300 was still partially able to stabilize MYC (data not shown). Another common binding factor used by both proteins is the complex of p400 and TRRAP (12, 28). Given the striking analogies between the biological activities of E1A and MYC, we favor the hypothesis that E1A might affect the stability of MYC by competing with the interaction of MYC with one or several partner proteins. Such interaction partners might, for instance, affect the ubiquitination of MYC.
The inhibitory effect of excess MYC on adenovirus replication might suggest that mechanisms to negatively regulate myc mRNA levels were selected during the evolution of adenovirus. However, it is still unknown how MYC interferes with adenovirus replication. We have determined that MYC only marginally affects early adenovirus gene expression but antagonizes viral DNA replication. This correlates with inhibited formation of the virus replication centers. MYC was previously implicated in the direct regulation of cellular DNA replication, e.g., through the association with enzymes of DNA replication (36) or through binding to p21/CDKN1A, replacing the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) (19). Interestingly, MYC enhances, rather than decreases, the replication of simian virus 40 DNA by cellular polymerases (6). However, adenovirus uses a virus-encoded polymerase to replicate its DNA, and therefore, the requirements for the replication of its genome might be entirely distinct from those for cellular DNA or the genome of simian virus 40. Nonetheless, it is conceivable that MYC might interact with components of the DNA replication machinery used by the virus and interfere with their function.
Our data reveal a complex interplay between adenovirus infection and the expression of myc. Not only is myc among the relatively few genes that show a profoundly altered amount of mRNA upon infection, but MYC is further regulated at the level of protein stability and, in turn, is capable of affecting virus replication.
This work was supported by the German Research Foundation and the P. E. Kempkes Foundation.
We dedicate this paper to Hans-Dieter Klenk on the occasion of his 65th birthday in appreciation of his generous and continuous support. ![]()
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