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Journal of Virology, May 2005, p. 5963-5970, Vol. 79, No. 10
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.79.10.5963-5970.2005
Copyright © 2005, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Human Rhinovirus Type 89 Variants Use Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycan for Cell Attachment
Markete Vlasak,
Irene Goesler, and
Dieter Blaas*
Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University Departments at the Vienna Biocenter, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, Dr. Bohr Gasse 9/3, A-1030 Vienna, Austria
Received 12 August 2004/
Accepted 23 December 2004

ABSTRACT
We have previously isolated mutants of the major-group human
rhinovirus type 89 that grow in cells deficient in intercellular
adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), the receptor used by the wild-type
virus for cell entry [A. Reischl, M. Reithmayer, G. Winsauer,
R. Moser, I. Goesler, and D. Blaas., J. Virol.
75:9312-9319,
2001]. We now demonstrate that one of these variants utilizes
heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) as a cellular receptor.
Adaptation to ICAM-1-deficient cells not only resulted in the
newly acquired receptor specificity but also rendered the virus
less stable at low pH and at elevated temperatures. This instability
might compensate for the absence of the uncoating activity of
ICAM-1. Whereas wild-type virus infection via ICAM-1 proceeded
in the presence of the vesicular H
+-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin
A1, infection by the mutant via HSPG was prevented by the drug.
This suggests that the low pH prevailing in endosomal compartments
is required for uncoating in the absence of the catalytic activity
of ICAM-1.

INTRODUCTION
Human rhinoviruses (HRVs), the main causative agents of common
cold infections and members of the picornavirus family, are
small (

30-nm diameter) icosahedral particles composed of 60
copies of each of the four viral capsid proteins VP1 through
VP4. The capsid encases a single-stranded RNA molecule of positive
(messenger sense) polarity encoding a polyprotein, which is
cotranslationally and autocatalytically processed by the viral
proteinases 2A
pro and 3C
pro, giving rise to the structural and
nonstructural proteins (for a review, see reference
47). One
of the means of classification of a respiratory virus as an
HRV is its instability at low pH; incubation at acid pH quickly
induces a conformational modification of the capsid, giving
rise to noninfectious subviral particles (
52,
57). Particles
obtained by exposure to low pH or elevated temperature in vitro
are structurally similar to those produced in vivo during the
course of infection (
29). For some HRVs, the low-pH environment
encountered in the endosomal system is required for the release
of the genomic RNA into the cytosol, where translation and replication
take place.
More than 100 HRV serotypes have been characterized, and based on phylogeny, they are divided into genera A and B (30, 44). Some genus A and all genus B HRVs (the 89 major receptor group HRVs) gain access to the cell via human intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM-1), whereas 10 minor receptor group HRVs (all belonging to genus A) use members of the low-density lipoprotein receptor (LDLR) family for cell entry (58). These include the LDLR proper, the very-low-density lipoprotein receptor, and LRP, the LDLR-related protein (22, 34). HRV type 87 (HRV87) has been shown to utilize a sialylated glycoprotein as a cellular receptor (58) and was recently reclassified as an acid-sensitive enterovirus, EV68, that utilizes decay-accelerating factor for cell entry (6). The principles underlying receptor discrimination are only partly understood, and on the basis of the amino acid sequences of the capsid proteins and the three-dimensional structure of the viral shell at atomic resolution, it is currently not possible to classify a given serotype as a minor- or a major-group HRV (59, 60). Switching from one receptor specificity to the other has not been observed, and HeLa cells were not infected by the major-group virus HRV14 at a high multiplicity of infection when ICAM-1 on the plasma membrane was blocked with a monoclonal antibody (11). This suggests that at least for HRV14, single-amino-acid changes that occur with a frequency of 105 to 104 (49) do not suffice to acquire binding affinity for the receptor of the other group.
ICAM-1 is not only responsible for cell attachment of major-group HRVs but also facilitates the release of the genomic RNA, as demonstrated in vitro using soluble recombinant fragments of this protein (9, 19, 23). Apparently, interaction of the N-terminal immunoglobulin-like domain of ICAM-1 with amino acid residues within the viral canyon, a cleft encircling the fivefold axes of icosahedral symmetry, lowers the energy barrier of the conversion reaction from native virus to subviral particles (39), as has also been shown for poliovirus receptor and poliovirus (55); as opposed to native virus, which has a sedimentation constant of 150S, subviral A particles sediment at 135S and are believed to be an intermediate, and B particles, sedimenting at 80S, are believed to be the end product of the uncoating reaction (29, 32, 38). The former have shed the innermost capsid protein, VP4, but still contain the genomic RNA; B particles have also released the RNA.
Infection by HRV14, a major-group HRV, is only partially inhibited by the macrolide antibiotic bafilomycin A1, a specific inhibitor of the vesicular proton motive ATPase. From this, it was concluded that ICAM-1 is by itself capable of catalyzing viral uncoating in vivo, even at neutral pH (2). This is in contrast to LDLR, which only acts as a vehicle for cell entry but does not take part in the release of the RNA. Consequently, uncoating of HRV2, a prototype minor-group virus, does not occur at neutral pH, as the carboxylic ionophore monensin (37) and bafilomycin A1 completely abrogate infection (3, 40, 41, 46). This most probably applies also to the other minor-group HRVs.
Based on the relatively high sequence similarity of the capsid proteins of HRV2 and HRV89, between 62% (VP1) and 94% (VP4), we reasoned that only a small number of mutations might be necessary to change the receptor specificity of the latter serotype from ICAM-1 to LDLR. We further thought that the presence of a low concentration of ICAM-1 would facilitate attachment and replication of variants which had not yet acquired strong binding affinity for a putative new receptor but still bind ICAM-1. Using selection on HEp-2 cells, which express only low levels of ICAM-1 compared to HeLa cells, we indeed succeeded in isolating variants of HRV89 with affinity for another receptor (42). However, these isolates failed to attach to and were not neutralized by recombinant fragments of very-low-density lipoprotein receptor and thus had not switched to a minor-group receptor. The current paper reports on the further characterization of some of the HEp-2 cell-adapted mutants and the identification of the receptor used for cell entry. Most experiments were carried out with isolate 15 (42). However, we assume that the results can be extrapolated to the other variants obtained in the selection process; below, we shall refer to the number of the clone described by Reischl and colleagues with a subscript (i.e., clone 15 will be termed "HRV8915").

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Materials.
Heparinase I (catalogue no. H2519), phosphatidylinositol-specific
phospholipase C (from
Bacillus cereus; catalogue no. P5542),
and chondroitinase (catalogue no. C2905) were from Sigma-Aldrich
GmbH, Vienna, Austria; neuraminidase was from Behring, Marburg,
Germany. Proteoglycans were from Polygono Industrial, Barcelona,
Spain; HRV89 was originally obtained from the American Type
Culture Collection (LGC Promochem, Teddigton, Middlesex, United
Kingdom). COS-7 cells were from LGC; as verified by fluorescence-activated
cell sorter analysis, they are negative for ICAM-1 expression
(M. Reithmayer, unpublished data). HeLa-H1 cells (Flow Laboratories)
were grown in minimal essential medium, and COS-7 cells in Dulbecco's
modified Eagle medium. The media were supplemented with 10%
heat-inactivated fetal calf serum (FCS), 100 U/ml penicillin,
100 µg/ml streptomycin, and 2 mM
L-glutamine. For infection,
the respective growth media were reduced to 2% FCS, and 30 mM
MgCl
2 was added (infection medium). All tissue culture plasticware
was from Corning GmbH, Wiesbaden, Germany.
Metabolic labeling of the virus.
HeLa cells were grown in six-well plates to about 80% confluency. The cells were washed with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) and infected with 300 µl virus suspension in PBS at 108 50% tissue culture infective doses (TCID50) for 1 h at 34°C with rocking. Five hundred microliters of infection medium was added, and incubation was continued for a further 3 h at 34°C. The cells were washed with PBS and further incubated for 3 h in 800 µl of methionine-cysteine-free infection medium containing 2% dialyzed FCS. [32S]methionine-cysteine (0.1 mCi) (Hartmann Analytic GmbH, Braunschweig, Germany) was added per well; when more than 80% of the cells showed cytopathic effect, they were subjected to three freeze-thaw cycles. Cell debris was removed by centrifugation for 30 min in an Eppendorf centrifuge at full speed at 4°C. Virus in the supernatant was pelleted at 70,000 rpm for 1 h in a tabletop ultracentrifuge (rotor TLA 100.3; Beckman Instruments Inc., Fullerton, CA) and resuspended in 50 µl of Tris-buffered saline overnight. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis followed by autoradiography showed only the viral capsid proteins.
Enzymatic treatment of COS-7 cells and virus binding assays.
Cells were grown in 24-well plates until
80% confluent, washed with PBS containing 1 mM MgCl2 and 1 mM CaCl2 (PBS++), and incubated for 2 h at 37°C with 2 U/ml of the specified enzymes in PBS++ or in buffer alone. Neuraminidase was used at 0.2 U/ml. The cells were washed with cold PBS, virus at 105 TCID50 was added, and incubation continued for 1 h at 4°C. Unbound virus was washed off with cold PBS, the cells were subjected to three freeze-thaw cycles in 200 µl of infection medium, and virus that had associated with the cells was determined by end point dilution.
Inhibition of cell attachment with proteoglycans.
Cells grown in 24-well plates to
80% confluency were washed with PBS, and 200 µl of infection medium containing 2 mg/ml of heparin, heparan sulfate (HS), dermatan sulfate, or chondroitin sulfate was added. Radiolabeled virus (
18,000 cpm/well) was added, and incubation continued for 1 h at 34°C. After being washed with PBS, the cells were detached with trypsin, and cell-associated radioactivity was determined by liquid scintillation counting.
Inhibition of proteoglycan sulfation with chlorate.
Incorporation of sulfate into the proteoglycans was inhibited with chlorate as described previously (48). Briefly, cells were grown in medium containing 50 mM NaClO3 for 3 days in 24-well plates to about 80% confluency. After being washed with PBS, 200 µl infection medium containing or not containing 2 mg/ml heparin was added and the cells were challenged with
6,000 cpm/well of radiolabeled virus for 1 h at 34°C. The cells were then washed with PBS and detached with trypsin, and the radioactivity was determined.
Virus inactivation by exposure to low pH or incubation at 47°C.
Virus (106 TCID50 in 200 µl PBS) was adjusted to pH 4.5 by addition of 6.8 µl 0.5 M acetate buffer, pH 4; incubated for 15 and 30 min; and neutralized with 6.6 µl 0.5 M Na3PO4. Alternatively, virus was adjusted to pH 5.6 by addition of 2.7 µl of acetate buffer, incubated at 34°C, and reneutralized by addition of 2.3 µl of 0.5 M Na3PO4. For heat inactivation, identical samples were incubated in a water bath at 47°C for 15 and 30 min and immediately transferred to 4°C. Infectivity was determined by end point dilution.
Inhibition of endosomal acidification by bafilomycin A1.
Cells were grown in 24-well plates to about 80% confluency. The cells were washed with PBS, and then 200 µl of 200 nM bafilomycin A1 (Eubio, Vienna, Austria) in infection medium and/or 10 µg of antibody R6.5 (51) was added and preincubated for 1 h at 37°C. Two hundred microliters of virus (106 TCID50) was added, and incubation continued for 1 h at 34°C. The cells were then washed twice with ice-cold PBS, and 200 µl of fresh medium containing 100 nM bafilomycin A1 and/or 10 µg of R6.5 was added and incubated for a further 2, 11, or 23 h. The samples were then subjected to three freeze-thaw cycles. Infectivity was determined by end point dilution.
Inhibition of viral infection with proteoglycans.
COS-7 cells in 96-well plates were challenged with virus at 107 TCID50/well in 100 µl of infection medium with various concentrations of heparin. After incubation for up to 2 days at 34°C, metabolically active cells were determined by addition of CellTiter 96 AQueous Non-Radioactive Cell Proliferation Assay reagent (Promega Corporation, Madison, WI) for 12 h at 34°C, followed by measurement of A495 in a microplate reader.
Virus binding to cells deficient in heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG) synthesis.
CHO-K1 (wild type [wt]), pgsA-745 (deficient in xylosyltransferase), and pgsD-677 (doubly deficient in N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase and glucuronyltransferase) cells were grown in 24-well plates to about 80% confluency. After being washed with PBS, the cells were incubated with
20,000 cpm/well of radiolabeled virus in 200 µl infection medium for 1 h at 4°C. The cells were washed with PBS and detached with trypsin, and the radioactivity was determined by liquid scintillation counting.

RESULTS
HRV8915 binding to COS-7 cells is inhibited by proteoglycans.
Recently, many viruses have been found to use HS as a receptor
or coreceptor (
8,
10,
12,
14,
15,
18,
25,
45,
53,
61,
63), or
they can adapt to bind HS (
4,
24,
28,
50,
64; reviewed in reference
31). HS is a heterogeneous, highly sulfated polysaccharide with
repeating units that are predominantly composed of
N-acetylglucosamine
and iduronic acid (
56). Although mostly ionic in character,
interactions between HS and its ligands are relatively specific.
Therefore, in a first attempt at the identification of the receptor
used by the HEp-2 cell-adapted HRV89 mutants, we carried out
competition experiments with various proteoglycans. COS-7 cells
grown in 24-well plates were incubated with radiolabeled HRV89
15 in the presence of 2 mg/ml of heparin, heparan sulfate, chondroitin
sulfate, and dermatan sulfate. The cells were washed, and cell-associated
virus was quantified (Fig.
1). Binding was greatly reduced by
heparin and by heparan sulfate. Chondroitin sulfate and dermatan
sulfate reduced binding to a minor extent. In agreement with
earlier results (
42), wt HRV89 showed only background binding
to COS-7 cells (not shown).
To investigate whether heparin also protected the cells from
viral damage, infection was carried out in the presence of various
concentrations of heparin and cell viability was assessed by
monitoring their metabolic activity. This method was chosen,
since COS-7 cells, unlike HeLa cells, only incompletely detach
from the plastic upon infection, and therefore, cell damage
is somewhat difficult to monitor macroscopically. In agreement
with the previous data, high concentrations of heparin inhibited
infection. However, at low heparin concentrations, the cytopathic
effect following infection was increased (see below).
Heparinase treatment of COS-7 cells reduces HRV8915 attachment.
In order to confirm the involvement of heparan sulfate in attachment of HRV8915 to COS-7 cells, enzymatic treatments were carried out. Cells grown in 24-well plates were incubated with phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C, neuraminidase, heparinase I, and chondroitinase; released material was washed away; and the cells were incubated with HRV8915 at 4°C for 60 min to allow attachment but to prevent internalization and uncoating. The cells were washed, and plasma membrane-attached virus was recovered by three freeze-thaw cycles. After removal of cell debris by low-speed centrifugation, the titer of the virus in the supernatant was determined by end point dilution (Fig. 2). Compared with the cells incubated in the absence of any enzymes (control), it can be seen that treatment with heparinase reduced viral binding by more than 99%. Treatment with phospholipase C or with chondroitinase also resulted in substantial reduction of binding, whereas digestion with neuraminidase diminished the binding to about 50% of the control. Some HSPGs, such as glypican (13), are attached to the membrane via glycosyl phosphatidylinositol anchors (5, 62) and might thus be removed by the phospholipase treatment. The reduction of binding by the treatment with neuraminidase suggests that sialic acid residues or simply negative charges are important for the interaction.
COS-7 cells grown in the presence of chlorate exhibit a strongly reduced virus binding capacity.
Further evidence for involvement of sulfated proteoglycans in
viral binding was obtained by inhibition of sulfate incorporation
by chlorate (
21). Cells were grown in medium containing 50 mM
NaClO
3 and infected with radiolabeled virus. As seen in Fig.
3, growth of the cells in the presence of chlorate strongly
reduced virus binding. If heparin was present during the attachment
period, binding was even more reduced, indicating that synthesis
of the glycans was not completely prevented by the chlorate.
CHO cell mutants deficient in proteoglycan synthesis fail to bind HRV8915.
CHO cells with defects in the synthesis of HSPG have been extensively
used to demonstrate the involvement of HS in binding of various
viruses, such as respiratory syncytial virus (
36), human papillomavirus
(
18), Dengue virus (
10), tick-borne encephalitis virus (
33),
and foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) (
25), among others.
CHO pgsA-745 cells are deficient in xylosyltransferase and fail
to produce any glucosaminoglycans; pgsD-677 cells are doubly
deficient in
N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase and glucuronyltransferase
and therefore lack HS but synthesize threefold-higher levels
of CS than the wt (
16). These cells, as well as control wt CHO-K1
cells, were grown in 24-well plates and challenged with
35S-labeled
wt HRV89 and HRV89
15, respectively. The supernatant containing
unattached virus was collected, the cells were dislodged by
trypsinization, and radioactivity in the supernatant and in
the pellet was determined by liquid scintillation counting.
As seen from the percent radioactivity in the cell pellet (Fig.
4), binding of wt as well as mutant virus to both CHO cell lines
deficient in heparan sulfate synthesis was low, whereas the
mutant virus attached well to CHO-K1 cells. It is noticeable,
however, that wt virus also attached to CHO-K1 cells, although
to a considerably lower extent (13% binding compared to 36%
binding of the mutant virus). This finding agrees with results
of experiments in which binding of wt HRV89 to HeLa cells was
also somewhat reduced by heparin (data not shown) and indicates
that wt HRV89 might exhibit low affinity for heparin.
Hep-2 cell-adapted mutants are less stable.
The HRV89 mutants have been shown to be more easily inactivated
by soluble recombinant ICAM-1 in vitro than the wild type (
42).
This might indicate that the mutations were associated with
decreased stability of the viral capsid. We therefore wondered
whether the HRV89 mutants were more readily inactivated at elevated
temperature and at low pH in vitro. Wild-type and mutant viruses
were incubated at 50°C, and infectivity was determined after
15 and 30 min of incubation time. The mutant had completely
lost its infectivity after 15 min, whereas the infectivity of
the wt was reduced by 5 log units at 15 min and by 6 log units
at 30 min of incubation time (not shown). In order to conserve
some infectivity of the mutant, the same experiment was then
repeated at 47°C (Fig.
5). At this temperature, the infectivity
of the mutant was reduced by 4 log units at 15 min and by 5
log units at 30 min, which again clearly exceeded the inactivation
of the wt virus. The same experiments were also carried out
with the mutants HRV89
27, HRV89
34, HRV89
44, and HRV89
79 (
42);
all of them were more readily inactivated by the heat treatment
than the wild type (data not shown).
Major-group viruses not only attach to human ICAM-1 but, as
explicitly demonstrated for HRV3, HRV14, and HRV16, the receptor
also aids uncoating (
9,
19,
23). As shown for the minor-group
virus HRV2, at least LDLR has no such activity in vitro (
35)
and LDL receptors only function as vehicles for virus internalization
but do not actively take part in the uncoating reaction (
7).
For the minor receptor group viruses, uncoating is thus rather
mediated by the low-pH environment prevailing in the endosomal
system (
37,
40,
46). In accordance with these data, HRV14 infects
HeLa cells, although with lower efficiency, in the presence
of the specific proton ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1, which
raises the vesicular pH to neutrality. Conversely, HRV2 infection
is prevented by the drug (
2). We thus wondered whether, at low
pH, the mutants would be more readily inactivated than the wild
type. Virus was incubated in Na-acetate buffer (to adjust the
solution to pH 4.5) for 15 and 30 min at room temperature, the
pH was brought back to neutrality, and virus survival was compared
to that at time zero. As seen in Fig.
6, the mutant was much
less stable at low pH than the wild type. The decreased stability
might be necessary to facilitate uncoating in the absence of
the catalytic action of ICAM-1.
In COS-7 cells, HRV8915 uncoating appears to depend on low endosomal pH.
Whereas the minor-group virus HRV2 is strictly dependent on
low endosomal pH and cannot infect the host cell in the presence
of bafilomycin A1, an inhibitor of the vesicular H
+ ATPases
(
40), infection of HeLa cells by the major-group virus HRV14
proceeds in the presence of the drug, although with reduced
efficiency (
2). This was taken to indicate that ICAM-1 also
catalyzes uncoating of HRV14 in vivo. We therefore asked whether
wt HRV89 was similarly able to initiate infection in the presence
of the drug, whereas HRV89
15 would depend on the low endosomal
pH in the absence of ICAM-1. Since the mutants also bind ICAM-1
(
42), the experiment could not be carried out in HeLa cells
and COS-7 cells were used instead. As seen in Fig.
7A, the titer
of HRV89
15 slowly decreased in COS-7 cells in the presence of
bafilomycin A1, and no replication was apparent. HRV2 remained
equally infectious over more than 20 h within cells infected
in the presence of the drug (
2). The decrease in infectivity
of HRV89
15 is in line with its lower stability. On the other
hand, when HeLa cells were infected with the mutant virus and
ICAM-1 was blocked by the R6.5 antibody (Fig.
7B), some de novo
viral synthesis was seen even in the presence of bafilomycin.
This is most probably due to incomplete blockage of the receptor
within the endosomes. Some free ICAM-1 might be sufficient to
uncoat the labile HRV89
15 variant (
42). Similarly to HRV14,
wild-type HRV89 replicated in the presence of the drug with
reduced efficiency (data not shown). Taken together, these data
suggest that HRV89
15 might be dependent on the low-pH environment
in COS-7 cells lacking the catalytic virus-uncoating activity
of ICAM-1.
At low concentrations, heparin stimulates viral infection.
For some heparin-binding viruses, e.g., a particular strain
of FMDV (
25), another picornavirus, and adeno-associated virus
type 2 (
53), infection is inhibited at µg/ml concentrations
of heparin. Therefore, we infected COS-7 cells with HRV89
15 in the presence of various concentrations of heparin to determine
the lowest concentration resulting in viral inhibition. Whereas
the cells were fully protected against infection between 1,500
and 2,000 µg/ml (Fig.
8; also compare Fig.
1), cell damage
was clearly enhanced at lower heparin concentrations. This was
most pronounced at 48 h p.i. Control experiments showed that
the heparin itself is not toxic to the cells at any of the concentrations
used. Heparan sulfate had similar effects, with low concentrations
enhancing and higher concentrations inhibiting virus-induced
cell damage (data not shown). Viability of COS-7 cells was not
reduced when challenged with HRV16 or wt HRV89 in the presence
of any concentration of heparin.

DISCUSSION
In this report, we demonstrate that a variant of the major-group
HRV89, adapted to grow in COS-7 cells that are devoid of the
viral receptor ICAM-1, uses proteoglycans, preferentially heparan
sulfate, for infection. This is substantiated (i) by inhibition
of viral binding by heparin and heparan sulfate (Fig.
1), (ii)
by loss of binding upon treatment of the cells with heparinase
(Fig.
2), (iii) by reduction of virus binding to cells grown
in the presence of the sulfation inhibitor NaClO
3 (Fig.
3),
and (iv) by substantially less viral binding to CHO cell mutants
defective in heparan sulfate synthesis than to wt CHO-K1 cells
(Fig.
4). The binding seems to be of moderate specificity, since
some inhibitory effect was also noted for other glycans, such
as dermatan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate (Fig.
1), and neuraminidase
treatment of the cells reduced viral attachment to a small extent
(Fig.
2). The glycan serving as a receptor appears to be anchored
in the plasma membrane via phosphatidylinositol, since it is
released upon treatment with phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase
(Fig.
2). The interaction between virus and this receptor must
be ionic in nature, which is also supported by the finding that
the HRV89 variants adapted to grow in HEp2 cells have mutations
at their surfaces that render them more basic. However, similarly
to heparin-binding FMDV (
17), our viral isolates lack a particular
heparin recognition sequence, such as BBXB or BBBXXB, where
B is a basic amino acid residue (
54).
It has been observed that a number of viruses acquire affinity for heparin upon propagation in tissue culture without any selection pressure (28, 43, 50). However, we selected for variants that had become independent from ICAM-1 (42). This might have accelerated a process that occurs anyway in tissue culture. Indeed, in accordance with the literature cited above, we observed that wt HRV89 exhibited some low proteoglycan binding affinity that was somewhat increased upon extended serial passaging, even in HeLa cells that possess ICAM-1 (data not shown). It is also noteworthy that in these cells, all the variants replicated slightly more rapidly than the wt.
In addition to the mutations responsible for heparin binding, the other mutations that are clustered at protomer interfaces appear to be responsible for the decrease in stability of the viral capsid. This is seen from the much lower concentrations of soluble ICAM-1 required for inactivation (42), and as shown in our present report, from the mutants being more easily inactivated at elevated temperature (Fig. 5) and at low pH (Fig. 6). This is in line with inhibition of infection by the vesicular proton-ATPase inhibitor bafilomycin A1 in COS-7 cells (Fig. 7A). Since a pH of 4.5, as used in the inactivation experiment (Fig. 6), is normally not attained in endosomes, we repeated the experiment at pH 5.6 and used an incubation temperature of 34°C to match physiologic conditions; e.g., HRV2, which strictly depends on low pH for uncoating, undergoes a structural modification at pH 5.6 (7, 20). Under these circumstances, after 30 min, the titer of wt virus decreased by 0.2 log units and that of the mutant by 0.7 log units (data not shown), underscoring that the inferior pH stability of the mutant might be physiologically meaningful, allowing for easier uncoating. Therefore, we believe that in the absence of ICAM-1, the capsid needs to be less stable because uncoating can only be achieved by the low-pH environment in the endosomal lumen.
We observed that cell damage caused by the virus was prevented in the presence of 1.5- to 2-mg/ml concentrations of heparin and heparan sulfate but was rather stimulated by
10-fold-lower concentrations of the inhibitors (Fig. 8). This stimulation was seen down to a concentration of 2 µg/ml of heparin (not shown). A similar effect has been described by Jinno-Oue and colleagues for murine leukemia virus PVC-211 (26). In this case, heparin was found to augment infection at concentrations between 1 and 50 µg/ml, whereas it was inhibitory at higher concentrations. The authors hypothesized that heparin bridged the virus with a putative heparin receptor at low concentrations but saturated the binding sites at high concentrations. In the case of HRV8915, we observed aggregation of the virus by 2-mg/ml concentrations of heparin, since it was pelleted by low-speed centrifugation in an Eppendorf centrifuge (not shown). This, together with the results discussed above, explicitly demonstrates the affinity of the virus for heparin but does not explain the stimulatory effect. When the cells were preincubated with heparin, washed, and challenged with virus, no stimulation of infection was noted (data not shown). This excludes "bridging" but suggests that virus carrying a small number of attached heparin molecules in some way either attaches to or enters the cells more efficiently; it is also conceivable that virus-attached heparin aids uncoating. This might possibly be brought about by a slight decrease in intraendosomal pH, as was observed for macrophages incubated with the polyanion dextran sulfate (27). In this case, dextran sulfate was taken up complexed to serum lipoproteins and decreased the pH of lysosomes by between 0.3 and 0.4 units.
In summary, we have demonstrated that a major-group rhinovirus can adapt to use a sulfated proteoglycan as a receptor for cell entry and infection. This underscores the great plasticity of the picornavirus family, whose members not only use a large number of structurally and functionally different receptors despite similar structure but, due to their high mutation rate of between 105 and 104 nucleotides per generation (1), these viruses relatively easily adapt to other receptors, such as heparan sulfate. In the case of HRV89, the adaptation is correlated with loss of stability that most probably facilitates uncoating in the absence of the catalytically active ICAM-1.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work was funded by grant P14503-B09 from the Austrian Science
Foundation.
We thank Renate Fuchs for discussions and critically reading the manuscript.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max F. Perutz Laboratories, University Departments at the Vienna Biocenter, Department of Medical Biochemistry, Medical University of Vienna, Dr. Bohr Gasse 9/3, A-1030 Vienna, Austria. Phone: 43 1 4277 61630. Fax: 43 1 4277 9616. E-mail:
dieter.blaas{at}meduniwien.ac.at.


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Journal of Virology, May 2005, p. 5963-5970, Vol. 79, No. 10
0022-538X/05/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.79.10.5963-5970.2005
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