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Journal of Virology, March 2003, p. 2903-2914, Vol. 77, No. 5
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.77.5.2903-2914.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Régulation de la Transcription et Maladies Génétiques, CNRS UPR2228, UFR Biomédicale, 75270 Paris cedex 06, France
Received 6 August 2002/ Accepted 20 November 2002
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Nuclear HDACs deacetylate nucleosomal core histone tails, establishing a locally condensed chromatin structure associated with gene silencing (38). Three classes of nuclear HDACs have been described. The first class includes mammalian HDAC1, HDAC2, and HDAC3, which are highly homologous to the yeast repressor protein Rpd3 (6) and characterized as almost exclusively present in the nucleus. The second class includes mammalian HDAC4, HDAC5, and HDAC6, which are homologous to yeast Hda1 (12) and are able to shuttle between the nucleus and the cytoplasm (23). The third class of HDACs are related to yeast repressor protein SIR2 (18). They differ from the other two classes in that they display NAD-dependent HDAC activity (16) and are often found in the nucleolus. HDACs do not bind directly to DNA but are recruited either directly or indirectly to specific promoters by transcription factors (38) and often function in large multiprotein complexes, such as mSin3A, NuRD (nucleosome remodeling histone deacetylase), or MeCP2 (7, 17, 38).
Protein Yin Yang 1 (YY1) is a transcription factor that binds to DNA through the recognition of a specific consensus sequence and directly interacts with HDACs. YY1 has been shown to bind in vivo to HDAC2 and in vitro to HDAC1, HDAC2, and HDAC3 (6). It is a ubiquitous, Krüppel-like, zinc finger transcription factor (2, 11, 34) known to either repress or activate a high number of genes, among which are c-Myc, c-Fos, ß-casein,
-actin, histone H4, IFN-
, interleukin 5, interleukin 3, adeno-associated virus P5 promoter, human papillomavirus type 16 and 18, Moloney murine leukemia virus, and several other cellular or viral genes (10, 13, 31, 34, 40). The targeted disruption of the mouse YY1 gene is lethal, demonstrating an essential function of this protein during the development of the mouse embryo (9).
A wide variety of transcription factors, such as c-Myc, SP1 (29), and E1A (20), as well as transcriptional corepressors, such as HDACs (as it was mentioned before), or coactivators like CBP, pCAF, and p300 bind to YY1 (34). Such protein-protein interactions can play a key role in establishing YY1 either as a repressor or as an activator, as it has been demonstrated in the case of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 long terminal repeat, where YY1 acts as a repressor via the recruitment of HDAC1 (5). The intracellular YY1 concentration (4), promoter sequence environment (27), or YY1 posttranslational modifications (39) can also decide whether YY1 acts as a repressor or an activator of transcription.
In this work we show that YY1 specifically binds in vitro as well as in vivo to IFN-ß promoter at positions -90 and -122. We demonstrate that YY1 plays a dual repressor/activator role in the transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter depending on its binding site and on the moment after virus infection. Protein YY1 can itself be acetylated and deacetylated by histone acetyltransferases (HAT) and deacetylases (39). The degree of acetylation of YY1 can affect its DNA-binding capacity as well as the capacity of the protein to interact with HDACs. These characteristics of YY1 are discussed in the context of IFN-ß gene regulation.
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Gel retardation assays followed by Western blotting. Gel retardation assays were carried out as described above, except that 25 µg of nuclear extracts (instead of 5 µg) and 5 pmol of unlabeled DNA probe (instead of 0.05 pmol) were used. After migration, the gel was soaked in transfer buffer (50 mM Tris-HCl, 40 mM Gly, 1 mM sodium dodecyl sulfate [SDS], 20% methanol) for 40 min at room temperature before being submitted to Western blotting with Santa Cruz rabbit polyclonal anti-YY1 antibody (H-414) as the primary antibody.
Chromatin immunoprecipitation. L929 wt330, mut122, and mut90 cells were fixed with 1% formaldehyde added to the medium for 10 min, scraped, and collected by centrifugation. Cells were resuspended in 0.1 ml of lysis buffer [5 mM piperazine-N,N'-bis(2-ethanesulfonic acid) (PIPES, pH 8.0), 85 mM KCl, 0.5% NP-40] with 0.5 mM phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride, 1 µg of pepstatin A/ml, and 1 µg of leupeptin/ml. Cells were pelleted by centrifugation and resuspended in 200 µl of 1% SDS, 10 mM EDTA, and 50 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0) containing protease inhibitors. After incubation on ice for 10 min, cells were sonicated 10 times for 10 s. Lysates were then cleared by centrifugation, and the concentration of DNA was determined. DNA was diluted 10-fold in dilution buffer (0.01% SDS, 1% Triton X-100, 2 mM EDTA, 20 mM Tris-HCl [pH 8.1], 150 mM NaCl). The chromatin solution was precleared for 45 min at 4°C on protein A-Sepharose 4B beads preadsorbed with sonicated single-stranded DNA (1 ml of a 50% suspension of protein A-Sepharose 4B beads plus 8 µl of sonicated 10-mg/ml single-stranded DNA). Corresponding aliquots of chromatin solution were then incubated with 5 µl of anti-YY1 (Santa Cruz no. 4703) or anti-HMGI (Santa Cruz no. 8982) antibodies overnight at 4°C. Immune complexes were collected on protein A beads preadsorbed with sonicated single-stranded DNA. Beads were washed sequentially in TSE (0.1% SDS, 1% Triton X-100, 2 mM EDTA, 20 mM Tris-HCl [pH 8.1]) with 150 mM NaCl, TSE with 500 mM NaCl, buffer A (0.25 M LiCl, 1% NP-40, 1% deoxycholate, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM Tris-HCl [pH 8.1]), and three times with Tris-EDTA and then extracted three times with 1% SDS and 0.1 M NaHCO3. Cross-links were reversed by heating at 65°C for 4 h, and DNA was precipitated with ethanol. Precipitates were resuspended in 20 µl of Tris-EDTA, digested with proteinase K (50 µg/ml for 1 h at 37°C), extracted with phenol-chloroform (1:1), and finally ethanol precipitated. PCR analysis of immunoprecipitated DNA was performed with the oligonucleotide F-40 (5'-GTT TTC CCA GTC ACG AC-3', specific for the pBLCAT3 vector) as the 5' primer and oligonucleotide CAT (5'-CCA TTT TAG CTT CCT TAG-3', specific for the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase [CAT] reporter gene) as the 3' primer. PCR conditions were as follows: 1 cycle of 94°C for 1 min, 60°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1 min; 1 cycle of 94°C for 1 min, 58°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1 min; 1 cycle of 94°C for 1 min, 55°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1 min; 20 cycles of 94°C for 1 min, 53°C for 1 min, and 72°C for 1 min; and 1 cycle of 72°C for 10 min.
Plasmid construction. Plasmid constructions were carried out by double PCR as previously described (3) by using plasmid pBLCAT3-muIFN-ß wt330 as a template. This plasmid carries the wild-type murine IFN-ß (muIFN-ß) promoter fragment from -330 to +20 cloned in front of the CAT reporter gene of plasmid pBLCAT3 (3). For primers, we used the corresponding mutated oligonucleotides described in Table 1 as well as primer -40 (5'-GTTTTCCCAGTCACGAC-3') and primer CAT (5'-CCATTTTAGCTTCCTTAG-3'). Plasmid mut122 carries a mutation at the -122 site, and plasmid mut90 carries a mutation at the -90 site. Plasmid mut122 was used as a template for the construction of plasmid mut122/90, which carried mutations at both the -122 and -90 sites.
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TABLE 1. Sequences of oligonucleotides containing wild-type or mutated YY1 DNA-binding sitesa
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FIG. 4. YY1 down-regulates the transcriptional capacity of the muIFN-ß promoter via histone deacetylation. (A) Murine L929 wt330 cells, carrying the stably integrated muIFN-ß promoter (from position -330 to +20) fused upstream of a CAT reporter gene, were transiently transfected with 1 µg/well, final concentration, of YY1 expressing plasmid (pCMV-YY1) or the corresponding empty vector (pCMV). When indicated, TSA (100 ng/ml final concentration) was added to the medium 4 h after transfection. Cells were virus induced 48 h after transfection and collected 18 h after virus infection. TSA was removed from the medium after virus infection and thereafter until the collection of the cells. (B) Murine L929 wt330 cells were transiently transfected and virus infected as described for panel A with increasing amounts (62, 125, 250, 500, or 1,000 ng/well) of YY1 expressing a plasmid (pCMV-YY1) or the corresponding empty vector (pCMV). Repression fold corresponds to the CAT activity measured from pCMV-transfected cells divided by the CAT activity measured from pCMV-YY1 transfected cells. (C) Murine L929 wt110 cells, carrying the stably integrated muIFN-ß promoter (from position -110 to +20) fused upstream of a CAT reporter gene, were transiently transfected and virus infected as described for panel A with 1 µg/well, final concentration, of YY1 expressing plasmid (pCMV-YY1) or the corresponding empty vector (pCMV).
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FIG. 5. An intact YY1 -90 site is required for YY1-induced repression and TSA-dependent activation of the IFN-ß promoter activity. (A) Murine L929 wt330, mut122, and mut90 strains carrying, respectively, integrated wild-type or mutated muIFN-ß promoters fused to a CAT reporter gene were transiently transfected with 250 ng/well, final concentration, of pCMV or pCMV-YY1 plasmid. Cells were virus induced 48 h after transfection and collected 18 h after infection. NDV, Newcastle disease virus. (B) Noninfected murine L929 wt330, mut122, and mut90 cells were treated or not with 100 ng of TSA/ml (final concentration) for 48 h before being collected. (C) Equivalent amounts of genomic DNA isolated from L929 wt330, mut122, and mut90 strains were immunoprecipitated (I.P.) with anti-YY1 antibodies. Immunoprecipitated DNA (1, 2, and 3 µl) was amplified with primers specific for the integrated IFN-ß region. (D) Gel retardation assay of labeled wt330, mut122, and mut90 muIFN-ß promoters (from -330 to +20) incubated with 75 ng of recombinant protein HMGI in the presence of 250 ng of sonicated, unlabeled salmon sperm DNA as a random, nonspecific competitor DNA.
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FIG. 6. Mutated promoters mut122 and mut90 display reduced virus-induced activities. Cells from the L929 wt330 strain (top), mut122 strain (middle), and mut90 strain (bottom) were virus infected and collected at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 18 h after infection. The corresponding absolute CAT activities (i - mi) were measured.
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FIG. 8. Mutation of both YY1-binding sites (mut122/90) strongly reduces the virus-induced transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter. (A) Cells from the wild-type L929 wt330 strain or the double mutant L929 mut122/90 strain were mock transfected or transiently transfected with 250 ng/well, final concentration, of pCMV or pCMV-YY1 plasmid. Cells were virus induced 48 h after transfection and collected 18 h after infection. NDV, Newcastle disease virus. (B) Noninfected wild-type murine L929 wt330 cells and double mutant L929 mut122/90 cells were treated or not with 100 ng of TSA/ml (final concentration) for 48 h before being collected. TSA was removed from the medium after virus infection and thereafter until collection of the cells. (C) Cells from the double mutant L929 mut122/90 strain were virus infected and collected at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 18 h after infection. The corresponding absolute CAT activities (i - mi) were measured.
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FIG. 1. Four potential YY1-binding sites are present in the muIFN-ß promoter. The DNA sequence of the muIFN-ß promoter region spanning from the TATA box to position -210 is shown (35). Positions of the VRE and NRDs are indicated. Arrows indicate the presence of the YY1 core motifs (5' to 3') of the four potential YY1-binding sites.
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FIG. 2. Protein YY1 forms protein-DNA complexes with sequences present in the muIFN-ß promoter. (A) Nuclear extracts were incubated with the indicated unlabeled double-stranded DNA probes (whose sequences are listed in Table 1), submitted to a gel retardation assay, and transferred on a nitrocellulose membrane. The presence of protein YY1 in the retarded protein-DNA complexes was revealed with anti-YY1 H-414 raised against the full-length YY1 as the primary antibody. (B) Same experiment as described for panel A but with probe mut90 containing the -90 YY1-binding site mutated in its YY1 core motif and probe mut122 containing the -122 YY1-binding site mutated in its YY1 core motif. (C) Same experiment as described for panels A and B, except that in the last lane nuclear extracts were loaded in the presence of poly(dI-dC) but in the absence (-) of DNA.
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FIG. 3. Protein YY1 binds to the muIFN-ß promoter at positions -90 and -122. (A) Nuclear extracts were incubated with labeled probes 122 and mut122 in the presence or absence of 2 µg of anti-YY1 monoclonal antibody (Ab) H-10X raised against the full-length YY1 protein. (B) Nuclear extracts were incubated with labeled probes 90 and mut90 in the presence or absence of 1 or 2 µg of anti-YY1 monoclonal antibody H-10X. (C) Competition experiments were carried out with nuclear extracts incubated with labeled probe 90 in the absence (-) or presence of a 150-fold excess (150X) of unlabeled probes 90, mut90, 122, mut122, 161, and 32. (D) Nuclear extracts were incubated with labeled probe 90 in the absence or presence of 50-, 100-, and 150-fold excesses of unlabeled probes 90 and 122. (E) Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay of genomic DNA from noninfected L929 wt330 cells. Increasing amounts of DNA immunoprecipitated (I.P.) with either anti-YY1 or anti-HMGI antibodies were amplified with primers specific for the integrated IFN-ß promoter region.
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Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays were performed in order to investigate the capacity of YY1 to bind to the muIFN-ß promoter in vivo. Genomic DNA from noninfected murine L929 wt330 cells was immunoprecipitated with anti-YY1 antibodies and amplified with primers specific for the integrated IFN-ß promoter. As an internal negative control, the same fraction of genomic DNA was immunoprecipitated with antibodies directed against HMGI, a protein whose binding to the IFN-ß promoter is not observed in vivo in the absence of virus infection (26). As shown in Fig. 3E, the IFN-ß promoter region was immunoprecipitated in the presence of anti-YY1 antibodies, indicating that YY1 binds in vivo to the IFN-ß promoter in noninfected cells. As expected with genomic DNA isolated from noninfected cells, no signal corresponding to the IFN-ß promoter was observed after immunoprecipitation with anti-HMGI antibodies.
YY1 down-regulates the transcriptional capacity of the muIFN-ß promoter. In order to assess the role of YY1 during the regulation of the transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter, YY1 was overexpressed in cells from the murine fibroblastic L929 wt330 cell line carrying a stably integrated wild-type muIFN-ß promoter (from position -330 to +20) CAT reporter construct. These cells were transiently transfected with either a YY1 expression vector (pCMV-YY1) or the corresponding empty vector (pCMV) and virus infected 48 h after transfection. As shown in Fig. 4A, overexpression of YY1 strongly repressed the transcriptional capacity of the integrated wt330 muIFN-ß promoter. The repression induced by YY1 increased proportionally with the amount of pCMV-YY1 plasmid used during transfection experiments (Fig. 4B), a phenomenon previously described when analyzing YY1-induced transcriptional repression (4, 10). No effect (either activator or repressor) was observed at plasmid concentrations of less than 62 ng/well (data not shown).
The interferon activity present in the medium of either pCMV- or pCMV-YY1-transfected or mock-transfected L929 cells was titrated. The results present in Table 2 clearly indicate that YY1 down-regulates the endogenous interferon activity in a manner very similar to that observed with the integrated CAT reporter construct.
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TABLE 2. Titration of IFN activity before and after YY1 overexpression
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We also analyzed the effect of YY1 overexpression on cells from the L929 wt110 cell line which carry a stably integrated short muIFN-ß promoter (from position -110 to +20) only containing the virus responsive element (VRE) of the promoter fused to a CAT reporter gene. The VRE region contains the four positive regulatory domains of the IFN-ß promoter and corresponds to the minimal region necessary for the virus-induced activation of the promoter (22). The overexpression of YY1 had no effect on the short wt110 IFN-ß promoter containing only the VRE region (Fig. 4C), demonstrating that the repressive effect of YY1 upon the IFN-ß promoter is not an indirect consequence of YY1 affecting the expression of a regulatory VRE binding factor. It also indicates that YY1-induced repression of the IFN-ß promoter requires the presence of the promoter region 5' of the VRE. This region has been described as a negative regulatory domain (NRDII) which intervenes during the establishment of the promoter constitutive silent state (41). It constitutes a region of nucleosome positioning (1) and of preferential interaction with linker histone H1 (3). Promoters lacking this region are constitutively derepressed (41) and are only weakly affected by TSA (30).
YY1-binding site present at position -90 mediates YY1 repressive effect. In order to investigate the role of the main YY1-binding sites present in the muIFN-ß promoter during the YY1-mediated repression of the promoter, we constructed pBLCAT3-derived plasmids containing the muIFN-ß promoters (from position -330 to +20) mutated at either one of the two main YY1-binding sites (-90 and -122) fused to the CAT reporter gene. In the case of the -90 as well as that of the -122 site, a single-base substitution was introduced in the YY1 core motif corresponding to the mut90 and mut122 mutations used during the gel retardation experiments listed in Table 1. The corresponding mutated promoter CAT reporter constructs were stably transfected into L929 cells. Positive independent clones were pooled and analyzed for their capacity to be repressed by YY1 (Fig. 5A). During these experiments only 250 ng of plasmid pCMV or pCMV-YY1 was used for transfection in order to reduce a nonspecific repression induced by the vector alone in strain mut122. The introduction of a mutation on the site present at position -90 almost completely abolished the capacity of YY1 to repress the transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter. On the contrary, YY1 continued to repress, at least partly, promoter mut122.
Treatment of wt330 cells with TSA has been previously described to activate the noninduced, constitutive activity of the promoter (30). In order to analyze the eventual role of YY1 during the TSA-induced activation of the IFN-ß promoter, mut122 and mut90 cells were treated with TSA at the same time as the wt330 strain. As shown in Fig. 5B, disruption of YY1 binding to the -90 site completely abolished the capacity of TSA to activate the noninduced constitutive activity of the IFN-ß promoter. Disruption of the -122 site also inhibited the capacity of TSA to activate the IFN-ß promoter but did not completely abolish it. Nevertheless, even though TSA-induced activation was abolished in mut90 cells, the constitutive noninduced activity of promoter mut90 remained very low.
Chromatin immunoprecipitation assays were carried out in order to compare the in vivo binding capacity of the YY1 protein to the mut122 and mut90 promoters. Equivalent amounts of genomic DNA isolated from noninduced wt330, mut122, and mut90 strains were immunoprecipitated with anti-YY1 antibodies and amplified with primers specific for the integrated IFN-ß promoter. The amount of IFN-ß promoter immunoprecipitated with anti-YY1 antibodies in the case of the mut90 strain was very low compared to that immunoprecipitated from the wild-type or mut122 strain (Fig. 5C), indicating that introduction of a mutation at site -90 strongly reduced the amount of YY1 bound in vivo to the IFN-ß promoter in noninfected cells. Whereas the mutation in the mut122 strain apparently did not affect much the in vivo capacity of YY1 to bind to the promoter in noninfected cells, the almost complete lack of YY1 binding to the mut90 promoter compared to the mut122 promoter in noninfected cells suggests that at this time YY1 is bound to the IFN-ß promoter predominantly at the -90 site.
A strong HMGI binding site is present in the muIFN-ß promoter next to the YY1-binding site present at position -122, and disruption of this site has been determined to lead to a reduced promoter activity (3). In order to test the eventual effect of the mutation in strain mut122 on the DNA-binding capacity of protein HMGI to the IFN-ß promoter, gel retardation experiments were carried out with wt330, mut90, and mut122 promoters (from position -330 to +20) and recombinant HMGI protein. As seen in Fig. 5D, the overall binding capacity of HMGI protein to the IFN-ß promoter was not significantly affected by the introduction of the mutations in strains mut122 and mut90. Gel retardation experiments carried out with recombinant HMGI protein and short oligonucleotides 122 and mut122 confirmed that the mutation in strain mut122 did not affect the binding of HMGI to this particular region (data not shown).
YY1 regulates virus-induced activation and transcriptional turn off of the IFN-ß promoter. Protein YY1 has been shown to have bifunctional activator/repressor transcriptional properties (19). As shown in Fig. 5A, the mut122 strain promoter displayed reduced virus-induced activity 18 h after infection. In order to investigate the effect of protein YY1 on the virus-induced transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter, cells from the wild-type wt330 and mutated mut122 and mut90 strains were virus infected and collected 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 18 h after infection. The corresponding CAT activities are shown in Fig. 6. In this figure, the virus-induced activities of the wt330, mut122, and mut90 IFN-ß promoters were analyzed independently of the corresponding constitutive noninduced activities. For this purpose, we subtracted the corresponding mock-induced CAT activities (mi) from the final CAT activities obtained after virus infection (i). In Fig. 6, we have called this value the absolute (i - mi) CAT activity. In agreement with previously described results (3, 14), activation of the IFN-ß promoter started 6 h after virus infection and this was observed with the wild-type wt330 strain as well as with the mutated mut122 and mut90 strains (Fig. 6). Nevertheless, strains mutated at either one of the two YY1-binding sites displayed reduced virus-induced activities compared to the wild-type strain, and this started as early as 6 h after infection. Ten hours after infection, strains mut122 and mut90 displayed virus-induced activities corresponding to a maximum of 40% of the activity reached by the wild-type strain at this time.
The maximum transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter is reached between 10 and 12 h after infection (14). After this time, transcription stops as a consequence of the postinduction transcriptional turn off of the IFN-ß promoter (37). Since the half-life of CAT mRNA is quite long, the value reached 10 h after infection remained constant until 18 h after infection (Fig. 6). This was observed in the case of the wild-type wt330 strain as well as with the strain carrying a promoter mutated at the YY1-binding site present at position -122. On the contrary, the activity of the strain carrying a promoter mutated at the YY1-binding site present at position -90 continued to progress beyond 10 h after infection. In order to study the kinetics of induction of each promoter, the percentage of activity of the promoters of the wt330, mut122, and mut90 strains were measured at 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 24, 32, and 54 h after infection. We have considered the absolute CAT activity reached by each promoter 10 h after infection to be 100%. As it is shown in Fig. 7, between 2 and 10 h after infection, the kinetics of induction of the three promoters were identical. Both the wt330 and the mut122 promoters reached their maximum activity near 10 h after infection. Because of the stability of the CAT mRNA, the corresponding activities slowly decreased thereafter and reached levels around 70% of their 10-h-postinfection value at 54 h after infection. In the case of the mut90 promoter, its activity continued to strongly increase between 10 and 24 h after infection and the mut90 promoter displayed a value still superior to 100% of its 10-h-postinfection value at 54 h after infection.
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FIG. 7. Promoter mut90 displays a retarded postinfection transcriptional turn off. Cells from the L929 wt330 ( ), mut122 ( ), and mut90 ( ) strains were virus infected and collected at 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 24, 32, and 54 h after infection. Percentages of the corresponding absolute CAT activities (i - mi) were measured. We have considered the activity reached by each strain 10 h after infection to be 100%.
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Chromatin immunoprecipitation experiments carried out with noninfected cells indicated that, before virus infection occurs, YY1 binds in vivo to the wild-type IFN-ß promoter predominantly at its -90 site, which appeared to be the strongest YY1-binding site during in vitro experiments.
It is interesting that potential YY1-binding sites are also present in the human; bovine 1, 2, and 3; and horse IFN-ß promoters (35). Binding of YY1 to IFN-ß promoters is therefore expected to be a feature highly conserved among different species.
YY1 represses the muIFN-ß promoter. During YY1 overexpression experiments, the A/T-rich region of the promoter positioned 5' of the VRE corresponding to NRDII and the YY1 -90 site appeared to be necessary to mediate YY1-induced repression. The NRDII sequence is a region of nucleosome positioning (1) that regulates the establishment of the promoter constitutive silent state (41) and partly mediates the TSA-induced constitutive derepression of the IFN-ß promoter (30). The role played by this region during YY1-induced repression of the IFN-ß promoter was a dominant one since promoter wt110 lacking NRDII was not affected by YY1 overexpression despite the presence of an intact -90 site on this promoter. The NRDII region could be the targeted region undergoing YY1-dependent modifications such as histone deacetylation during YY1-induced repression of the transcriptional activity of the IFN-ß promoter (Fig. 9).
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FIG. 9. The dual activator/repressor role of YY1 could be related to its capacity to interact with HATs and HDACs. We propose here a model that attempts to explain the bifunctional role of YY1 during the regulation of the transcriptional capacity of the IFN-ß promoter. Several points remain to be demonstrated, setting up directions for future work. Besides the data obtained during this work, the model we propose here relies on (i) previous results indicating that before virus infection HDAC participates in the establishment of the promoter constitutive repression state (30); (ii) the work of Agalioti et al. (1) which indicates that Gcn5 is recruited by the promoter 3 h after infection, peaks 6 h after infection, and is released from the promoter 9 h after infection, whereas CBP peaks between 9 and 12 h after infection, does not participate during promoter histone acetylation, and remains bound to the promoter 24 h after infection; and (iii) the work of Munshi et al. (25) that describes CBP as essential for the transcriptional turn off of the IFN-ß promoter. We suppose that in noninfected cells YY1 is predominantly bound to its -90 site and participates in promoter repression through an HDAC activity that deacetylates (DeAc) histones positioned in the NRDII region (top panel). Shortly after infection, YY1, alongside virus-activated factors bound to the VRE, participates in the recruitment of Gcn5. Gcn5 induces histone acetylation (Ac) necessary for nucleosome sliding and promoter transcriptional activation (1, 21) as well as YY1 acetylation (Ac) that disrupts YY1-DNA interactions (39) and could therefore induce YY1 promoter unbinding (middle panel). After release of Gcn5 from the promoter, nonacetylated forms of YY1 bind the promoter at its strongest -90 site and participate in the promoter transcriptional turn off in association with CBP and HDAC. Acetylation (Ac) of YY1 by CBP stabilizes YY1-HDAC interactions (39) (bottom panel).
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YY1 is an activator of the muIFN-ß promoter. Mutated promoters, mut122 and mut90, displayed reduced virus-induced activities, and this started shortly after infection. The HAT Gcn5, which belongs to the same family as PCAF, itself a YY1-interacting protein, is essential for the virus-induced transcriptional activation of the IFN-ß promoter. It is recruited by the IFN-ß promoter starting 3 h after infection, it peaks 6 h after infection, and it is released from the promoter 9 h after infection (1). The factor(s) responsible(s) for the recruitment of Gcn5 on the IFN-ß promoter have not been identified. We suggest that the protein YY1 could intervene during the recruitment of Gcn5 and by doing so act as a transcriptional activator shortly after infection (Fig. 9).
Dual activator/repressor role of YY1. The protein YY1 has the dual capacity to interact with corepressors such as HDACs as well as coactivators such as HATs. Besides acetylating or deacetylating histones, these cofactors can acetylate or deacetylate YY1 itself. Acetylation of YY1 residues 170 to 200 stabilizes YY1-HDAC interactions and therefore activates YY1 transcriptional repression activity. Acetylation of the YY1 C terminus by PCAF leads to the disruption of the interaction of YY1 with DNA (39). Therefore, changes concerning the local concentrations of these cofactors and of YY1 itself as well as variations on the DNA-binding affinities of YY1 for different promoter sites could influence whether YY1 acts as a repressor or an activator.
Investigation of the precise patterns of acetylation of histones H3 and H4 in mut90 and mut122 promoters before and after virus infection as well as comparative analysis of the effects linked to overexpression of Gcn5 in wt330 versus mut90 and mut122 promoters should help us to clarify the bifunctional role of YY1 during IFN-ß gene expression in relation to histone acetylation/deacetylation.
This work was supported by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and by a grant from the Association pour la Recherche sur le Cancer (ARC 5828). E.S. was a recipient of a fellowship from the Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale (FRM) until April 2002 and is a recipient of a fellowship from the Association Française contre les Myopathies (AFM).
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2 to the membrane receptors of Daudi cells. Eur. J. Biochem. 134:355-364.[Medline]
/ß gene induction. Immunity 13:539-548.[CrossRef][Medline]
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