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Journal of Virology, January 2003, p. 1589-1594, Vol. 77, No. 2
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.2.1589-1594.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Naotoshi Kaji,1,2 Takashi Odawara,1 Joe Chiba,2 Aikichi Iwamoto,1,3 and Yoshihiro Kitamura1*
Division of Infectious Diseases, Advanced Clinical Research Center,1 Department of Infectious Disease and Applied Immunology, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 108-8639,3 Department of Biological Science and Technology, Science University of Tokyo, Chiba 278-8510, Japan2
Received 18 April 2002/ Accepted 4 October 2002
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In most studies, although T lymphocytes are the main target for HIV-1, adhesion cells such as human IMR90 fibroblasts and 293 cells have been used for analysis of HLA-I down-regulation by Nef because of the general difficulty of expressing nef in suspended cells by transfection (9, 18). To express enough Nef for studying HLA-I down-regulation in suspended rather than adherent cells, we employed a recombinant Sendai virus (rSeV) system, which has been shown to express large amounts of heterologous recombinant proteins in 24 h after infection in both suspended and adherent cells (12, 31).
To identify which proline residue among the four in the PRD contributes most to HLA-I down-regulation, we constructed a series of rSeVs that express various Nef proteins with or without substitution of alanines for prolines. The DNA constructs used in these experiments were derived from a provirus plasmid, pNL-432 (1). Mutations were introduced into nef by site-directed mutagenesis based on overlap extension PCR (14). Each proline residue at amino acid 69, 72, 75, or 78 in the PRD of Nef was changed to alanine (P69A, P72A, P75A, P78A), and four consecutive glutamic acids from amino acid 62 to 65 in a highly conserved cluster of acidic residues, which is reported to bind to PACS-1 to down-regulate HLA-I (23), were changed to alanines (EEEE65AAAA). The resultant plasmids were designated pNL-432-APPP (P69A), pNL-432-PAPP (P72A), pNL-432-PPAP (P75A), pNL-432-PPPA (P78A), pNL-432-PPAA (P75A and P78A), pNL-432-PAAA (P72A, P75A, and P78A), pNL-432-PPPP/AAAA (P69A, P72A, P75A, and P78A), and pNL-432-EEEE/AAAA (EEEE65AAAA). An SeV-based expression vector, pSeV(+)18bV(-) (21), which generates antigenomic positive-strand viral RNA in which the viral V gene has been knocked out, was used in this study. The nef genes were amplified on wild-type and mutant pNL-432 plasmids by PCR. Based on the KSHV genomic sequence (26), we amplified DNA containing the KSHV K3 and K5 open reading frames from genomic DNA of BCBL-1 cells (3); PCR fragments were cloned in pSeV(+)18bV(-) (27). Unexpectedly, our K3 construct lacked 33 nucleotides spanning from nucleotide 583 to 615 in K3 ORF (26). The rSeV stocks were obtained as previously described (30) and generally had infectious titers of 107 to 109 PFU/ml. The mutant rSeVs were designated SeV-EEEE/AAAA, SeV-APPP, SeV-PAPP, SeV-PPAP, SeV-PPPA, SeV-PPAA, SeV-PAAA, SeV-PPPP/AAAA, SeV-K3, and SeV-K5.
Nef, K3, and K5 expression significantly down-regulated surface expression of HLA-I molecules compared with the mock vector, whereas the down-regulation of CD4 molecules was observed only with Nef expression (Fig. 1A). Furthermore, HLA-C molecules were down-regulated specifically by K3 and K5 but not Nef. We found that KSHV K3 and K5 down-regulated HLA-I molecules to a lower level than Nef in terms of the mean fluorescence intensities (Fig. 1B). SeV-PPPP/AAAA abolished HLA-I down-regulation strongly compared to SeV-EEEE/AAAA (Fig. 2A). Each of the four prolines in the PRD was replaced by alanine to address the question of which of the four prolines in the PRD is most critical. CD4 on CEM cells were down-regulated by infection with SeV-APPP, -PAPP, -PPAP, or -PPPA, to an extent similar to that observed with wild-type SeV. HLA-I expression was down-regulated by SeV-APPP, -PAPP, and -PPAP at a level equivalent to that of SeV-wild, but not by SeV-PPPA. Furthermore, the PPAA, PAAA, and PPPP/AAAA mutants inhibited the down-regulation of HLA-I more than the PPPA mutant. The cell lysates infected with rSeV were analyzed by Western blotting with anti-Nef mouse monoclonal antibody (Intracel, Cambridge, Mass.). Since we observed similar expression levels of Nefs in the samples (Fig. 2B), the observed extent of down-regulation seemed to be simply a function of the nature of the introduced mutations.
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FIG. 1. Flow-cytometric analysis of CD4 and HLA-I expression on cell surfaces. CEM cells were infected with each rSeV at a multiplicity of infection of 10 for 1 h. Twenty-four hours after infection, cells were treated at 4°C for 20 min with an allophycocyanin-labeled anti-CD4 antibody (Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems, San Jose, Calif.), and an R-phycoerythrin-labeled anti-HLA-I antibody (W6/32; Dako, Glostrup, Denmark) against a monomorphic epitope of HLA-A, -B, and -C or an anti-HLA-C antibody (29) with an R-phycoerythrin-labeled secondary antibody (Dako). A FACSCalibur flow cytometer (Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems) with CellQuest software (Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems) was used for flow cytometry. Isotype-matched control antibodies were included to detect nonspecific binding to cells. FlowJo software (Tree Star, San Carlos, Calif.) was used to make configurations. (A) Cells were analyzed for fluorescence intensity in the cell population gated as shown by a circle in each upper panel. The vertical axis represents signal intensity obtained with anti-HLA-I or anti-HLA-C. The horizontal axis represents signal intensity obtained with an anti-CD4 antibody. (B) Histograms of signal intensity obtained with anti-HLA-I or anti-HLA-C. Histograms are overlaid with a dotted-line histogram of an immunoglobulin isotype control. Values are mean fluorescence intensities (MFI) of HLA-I and HLA-C on the cell surface. The data were reproduced in three independent experiments. mock, SeV without inserted genes; Nef, rSeV with wild-type nef gene.
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FIG. 2. Analysis of HLA-I down-regulation in CEM cells infected with a series of rSeVs carrying mutant nef. CEM cells were infected with each rSeV at a multiplicity of infection of 10 for 1 h. (A) Flow-cytometric analysis of CD4 and HLA-I expression on the cell surface 24 h after infection. The vertical axis represents signal fluorescent intensity obtained with an anti-HLA-I antibody. The horizontal axis represents signal intensity obtained with an anti-CD4 antibody. (B) Cellular expression of Nef proteins by infection with rSeVs. CEM cells (106) were infected with each rSeV at a multiplicity of infection of 10. One-tenth of the cell lysates was separated by electrophoresis in a sodium dodecyl sulfate-10% polyacrylamide gel. The separated proteins were blotted to a nitrocellulose membrane and stained with an anti-Nef antibody. The arrow indicates bands of about 27 kDa, corresponding to the Nefs shown at the top. The positions of size markers are shown on the left.
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FIG. 3. Flow-cytometric analysis of HIV-1-infected CEM-GFP cells. (A) The vertical axis represents signal intensity obtained with an anti-HLA-I. The horizontal axis represents signal intensity obtained with GFP fluorescence; GFP expression is achieved by HIV-1 infection. The wild-type and mutant Nefs were expressed in the context of HIV-1NL432. (B) Surface levels of HLA-C of the cells infected with the wild-type HIV-1NL432 were assayed. The vertical axis represents signal intensity obtained with an anti-HLA-C antibody. The horizontal axis represents signal intensity of GFP fluorescence. The results are representative of three independent experiments. mock, non-HIV-1-infected CEM-GFP cells.
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Our results showed that Pro78 was the most critical residue for HLA-I down-regulation, while Pro72 and Pro75 were much less critical. Since the latter proline residues have been shown to form an SH3-binding surface in nuclear magnetic resonance analysis and in X-ray crystallography (10, 11, 17), SH3-mediated signaling pathways may not be required for HLA-I down-regulation by Nef. A substitution of only one single amino acid, such as Pro to Ala, may result in a dramatic conformational change. Thus, our results may indicate that Pro78Ala destroyed the Nef structure thoroughly whereas Pro69Ala, Pro72Ala, and Pro75Ala resulted in little conformational change (Fig. 2A and 3A). In other words, Pro78 might be responsible primarily for holding a certain fixed structure and secondarily for down-regulation of HLA-I. However, we prefer the explanation that Pro78 plays a primary role in HLA-I down-regulation, since all the mutant Nefs including PPPA down-regulated CD4 as well as the wild-type. This suggests that their conformational change in mutant Nefs, if any, is minimal.
This work was partly supported by grants for AIDS Research from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan; a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (A) from Japan Society of the Promotion of Science (JSPS); and the Japan Health Sciences Foundation.
Present address: Department of Microbiology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan. ![]()
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