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Journal of Virology, August 2006, p. 8145-8150, Vol. 80, No. 16
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.00373-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Department of Molecular and Medical Virology, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany,1 Research Program Innovative Cancer Diagnostics and Therapy, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany,2 Department of Internal Medicine V, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany3
Received 22 February 2006/ Accepted 23 May 2006
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SB and the numbering used are based on the SIVmac239 genome (GenBank accession number M33262) with mutations in gag (nucleotide [nt] 1331, T
A; and nt 1334, C
G); deletions in gag-pol, regulatory genes, and env (nt 2031 to 8014); and deletions in nef (nt 9500 to 9687 and nt 9732 to 10056). A cytomegalovirus (CMV)-green fluorescent protein (GFP) expression cassette (1.1-kb BamH1-Xho1 fragment) from HIV-CS-CG (22) was inserted into the upstream nef deletion. V
prom contains an additional deletion of the entire U3 region of the 3' long terminal repeat (LTR) (nt 9732 to 10231) and lacks the CMV promoter upstream of the GFP region due to deletion of a SmaI-Eco47III fragment. The mutations in gag and the deletions in nef and the U3 region have been previously characterized (12, 24).
293T (8) cells were kept in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum (FCS), penicillin (100 U/ml), and 100 U/ml streptomycin (DMEM plus 10% FCS). The cells were transfected in 175-cm2 flasks using the calcium phosphate coprecipitation method essentially as described previously (26). Wild-type SIV vector particles (SIVwt) were prepared by cotransfection of 40 µg of the gag-pol expression plasmid Sgp
2 (24), 16 µg of the expression plasmid for the G protein of vesicular stomatitis virus (pHIT-G [10]), and 40 µg of the SIV vector VCG
SB. SIV vector particles in the absence of vif, vpr, vpx, and nef (SIV
frxn) were prepared by cotransfection of the codon-optimized SIV gag-pol expression plasmid Sgpsyn (40 µg) (28), pcTat (24 µg) (19), pcRev (24 µg) (19), pHIT-G, and VCG
SB. Cotransfection of 40 µg V
prom, 40 µg Sgp
2, and 16 µg pHIT-G was used to generate SIV
prom particles. The supernatant of the transfected cells was harvested 48 h and 60 h after transfection and was passed through a 0.45-µm filter. After a centrifugation step (12,000 x g, 4°C, 1 h), the precipitated vector particles were resuspended in DMEM and stored at 80°C.
Transduction of target cells. On day 1, 293A cells (Quantum Biotechnologies, Montreal, Canada) were plated in 24-well plates at a density of 50,000 cells/well in DMEM plus 10% FCS. One day later, the medium was replaced by 200 µl of concentrated vector supernatants and incubated for 3.5 h prior to the addition of 800 µl medium. One day later, the infection procedure was repeated. On day 4, cells were split into a 25-cm2 flask, and on the next day, cells were transduced with 1 ml of vector supernatant. Cells were infected repeatedly to increase the number of integration events without overloading the cells with a high dose of vector particles. Once the 25-cm2 flasks became confluent, cells were trypsinized and plated into 96-well plates at a density of 5 to 20 cells/well. When the wells became dense, cells were transferred to a 24-well plate. As soon as these were dense, they were lysed in 500 µl buffer K (100 µg/ml protease K, 100 mM Tris, 5 mM EDTA, 0.2% sodium dodecyl sulfate, 200 mM NaCL [pH 8.5]) and incubated overnight at 37°C. An equal volume of isopropanol was added, and precipitated genomic DNA was washed once in 70% ethanol and then transferred to a fresh Eppendorf tube. The DNA was resuspended in 50 µl TE (Tris-EDTA) buffer at 60°C.
LM-PCR. Genomic DNA of transduced cells was digested with DpnII and subsequently purified and concentrated with Millipore montage PCR centrifugal filter devices. Overnight ligation was performed with 500 ng DNA in 2x ligation buffer (NEB) with preannealed oligonucleotides "Adapter long G" (5' GTAATACGACTCACTATAGGGCTCCGCTTAAGGGAC 3') and "Adapter short G" (5' GATCGTCCCTTAAGCGGAG 3'). KpnI digestion of the ligation reaction was used to avoid amplification of an internal vector fragment by ligation-mediated (LM)-PCR.
A nested PCR was performed with the outer primers "adapter 1 G" (5' GTAATACGACTCACTATAGGGC 3') and "U5 SIV LTRs 0" (5' CTGGTCAACTCGGTACTCAATA 3') under the following conditions: 300 nM primer, 2 mM MgCl2, 200 µM of each deoxynucleoside triphosphate, and 1 U Platinium Taq DNA polymerase (Invitrogen) in 1x PCR buffer. Cycling conditions were as follows: 95°C for 2 min; 40 cycles at 94°C for 30 s, 58°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 2 min; and 1 cycle at 72°C for 10 min. For the inner PCR, the primers "adapter 2 G" (5' AGGGCTCCGCTTAAGGGAC 3') and "U5 SIV LTRs 1" (5' TTCTGCTTTGGGAAACCGA 3') were used under the following conditions: 300 nM primer, 2.5 mM MgCl2, 200 µM of each deoxynucleoside triphosphate, and 1 U Platinium Taq DNA polymerase (Invitrogen) in 1x PCR buffer. Cycling conditions were as follows: 95°C for 2 min; 40 cycles at 94°C for 30 s, 60°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 2 min; and 1 cycle at 72°C for 10 min. PCR products were separated by agarose gel electrophoresis, and the DNA bands were excised and the DNA purified with a BioGene Geneclean III kit or the freeze-and-squeeze method (27). Purified fragments were sequenced with primer U5 SIV LTRs 1 by Geneart (Regensburg, Germany) using standard procedures.
Mapping of integration sites. Sequences were first viewed using Chromas 2.23 software (Technelysium Pty Ltd., Tewantin, Australia) to detect the 5' LTR sequence and the adapter sequence. Sequences were also checked for preservation of the terminal CA nucleotides of the LTR.
For fast and standardized analysis of sequences obtained from the LM-PCRs, we used the novel IntegrationMap task (F. A. Giordano, A. Hotz-Wagenblatt, D. Lauterborn, J.-U. Appelt, K. Fellenberg, K. Z. Nagy, W. J. Zeller, S. Suhai, S. Fruehauf, and S. Laufs, submitted). This task (available online at http://genius.embnet.dkfz-heidelberg.de/menu/biounit/open-husar/ or, for all services after registration for an account, at http://genome.dkfz-heidelberg.de) retrieves detailed information about whether integrations are located in or close to a gene, the name of the gene, the exact localization in the transcriptional units, and further parameters, such as distance from transcription start site to integration. Since only those genes annotated in the Ensembl (version 30.35c, 22 March 2005 freeze; http://www.ensembl.org/index.html) or RefSeq (refseq_RNA9.0) database are found by IntegrationMap, the data describe existing and validated genes.
Hits outside Ensembl genes were examined with NCBI BLAST (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/blast/), yielding pictures of chromosomal localization. Gene density at 0.5 Mbp in each direction from the integration site was determined using the NCBI map viewer (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/mapview/). Targeted RefSeq gene numbers were used to retrieve frequencies of sequential analysis of gene expression (SAGE) tags from the 293 SAGE library (SAGE_Kidney_embryonic_CL_293-control at http://cgap.nci.nih.gov/SAGE/AnatomicViewer). Frequencies of expressed tags per 200,000 identified tags were taken as gene expression levels.
Random insertion site generation. For comparison of data in terms of preferential integration patterns, we created a random sequence set consisting of 2,000 sequences (F. A. Giordano, B. Fehse, A. Hotz-Wagenblatt, S. D. V. C. Jonnakuty, J.-U. Appelt, Z. Nagy, K. Kuehlcke, S. Naundorf, A. R. Zander, W. J. Zeller, S. Fruehauf, and S. Laufs, submitted). Random numerical values following a uniform distribution were generated such that the values are evenly spread over a given interval. The first interval (1 to 3,121) was then divided into 24 parts, corresponding to the chromosomes with partition sizes according to the sizes of the individual chromosomes. The generated values then give the chromosome numbers with respect to their sizes. Another random number (interval, 100 to 200) was generated to determine the length of the random sequence and a third one (interval, first base of chromosome to last base of chromosome) for the start position within the chromosome. With the resulting values for chromosome number, start position, and length, the sequences were fetched from the Ensembl human genome database (http://www.ensembl.org/index.html) using the same Ensembl draft that IntegrationMap uses.
In addition, 200 RefSeq genes were randomly selected from the 24,772 genes of the database (database hg17, May 2004 freeze; http://genome.ucsc.edu), and the transcriptional activities of the 200 genes were estimated using the SAGE approach described above. The product of the percentage of randomly selected RefSeq genes that are transcriptionally active (32.5%) and the percentage of hit RefSeq genes in the whole-genome random sequence set (28.5%) was taken as the frequency of random integration into transcriptionally active genes.
Statistical analyses.
GraphPad Prism (Prism 4 for Windows; GraphPad Software, Inc., San Diego, CA) and statistics calculator (Statpac, Inc., Bloomington, MN) software were used for statistical analysis. The
2 test was performed with the statistics calculator to compare the frequencies of integration of different SIV vectors within the RefSeq genes. Furthermore, the nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test was performed with GraphPad Prism to compare the transcriptional activities of the genes targeted by the different SIV vectors used.
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SB), in which large regions of the SIV genome are deleted (Fig. 1). The GFP reporter gene is driven by the immediate-early promoter of human CMV. This vector was packaged by cotransfection with Sgp
2 (24), an expression plasmid carrying SIVmac239 gag-pol, tat, rev, vif, vpr, and vpx. To produce SIV
frxn, VCG
SB was cotransfected with a codon-optimized expression plasmid for SIVmac239 gag-pol (Sgpsyn in reference 28) and expression plasmids for tat and rev. A self-inactivating mutant of VCG
SB also lacking the CMV promoter of the GFP expression cassette (V
prom) was packaged with Sgp
2, resulting in SIV
prom particles. All three vector particles were pseudotyped with the G protein of vesicular stomatitis virus. The 293A target cells were transduced with the different vector particles. Five to 20 cells were plated in 96-well plates and subsequently expanded into 24-well plates. Genomic DNA was extracted and analyzed for integration sites by ligation-mediated PCR. Totals of 221, 191, and 174 unique integration sites could be mapped for SIVwt, SIV
prom, and SIV
frxn, respectively (Fig. 2). Integration sites were found on all chromosomes but seemed to cluster on some chromosomes and particular loci. Six loci spanning approximately 53.5 Mbp (1.8% of the haploid genome) harbored 17.4% of all integration events (Table 1). No cluster formation on chromosomal level was detected for a data set representing random integration events. The gene densities at the clustered integration sites of SIV (34 to 46 genes/Mbp [Table 1]) were high compared to that for the same chromosome (data not shown) or the whole genome (9.5 genes/Mbp).
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FIG. 1. Map of SIV vector constructs and gag-pol expression plasmids. Viral open reading frames and intact regulatory elements are marked by white boxes. GFP, coding region for the green fluorescent protein; CMV, human cytomegalovirus immediate-early promoter. The arrows mark the primer binding sites of U5 SIV LTRs 0 and U5 SIV LTRs 1; KpnI and DpnII restriction sites relevant for the LM-PCR are also shown (not all DpnII sites are shown).
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FIG. 2. Integration sites of the different vectors. Circle, SIV prom; triangle, SIV frxn; square, SIVwt; light gray symbols, integration outside RefSeq genes; black and dark gray symbols, integration within RefSeq genes.
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TABLE 1. Clustered integrations
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frxn, and SIV
prom (Table 2). The preference of SIV vectors for integration into RefSeq genes is comparable to that of HIV-1 but differs from that of MLV (Table 2) (6, 14), considering that the data for HIV-1 and MLV given in Table 2 were obtained with a 2002 database freeze containing 18,214 annotated RefSeq genes instead of 24,194 RefSeq genes as in the current database. |
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TABLE 2. Characterization of SIV integration sites within RefSeq genesa
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Integration into a RefSeq gene does not imply that this gene is actually transcribed in the vector-transduced cells. To determine whether the SIV vectors preferentially integrate into transcriptionally active genes, we assigned each targeted gene a transcriptional activity based on expression profiles determined for the target cell line by SAGE. Approximately 28.8% of the integrations were into RefSeq genes, for which expression is predicted by SAGE (Table 3). For random integration, the frequency of hitting transcriptionally active RefSeq genes is estimated to be 9%, indicating preferential integration of the SIV vectors into transcriptionally active RefSeq genes. Neither deletion of the promoter nor omission of the accessory genes reduced the frequency of integration of the SIV vector into transcriptionally active RefSeq genes significantly. Median expression levels for the targeted RefSeq genes did not differ significantly between the SIV vectors and the randomly picked RefSeq genes (Table 3).
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TABLE 3. Transcriptional activities of targeted genesa
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A striking clustering of integration events was observed with 17.4% of all integrations into six loci spanning only 1.8% of the human genome. All of these clusters had exceptionally high densities of genes and colocalized with regions of increased gene expression as defined previously (1). However, frequency of integration into other regions of increased gene expression was rather variable. In addition, the loci identified in this study differ from clustered integration sites found in other studies (14, 17, 25). Thus, the transcriptional activities at the loci in the particular target cells might well influence integration frequency.
Transcription factors binding to promoter and enhancer elements of the reverse-transcribed viral DNA might capture the viral DNA and redirect its transport to the sites of transcription. To test this hypothesis, all known promoter and enhancer elements were deleted from the vector construct. However, the deletion of these elements did not change integration site preferences. Thus, promoter and enhancer elements do not seem to modulate integration site preferences of SIV-based vectors. If there is a cis-acting DNA element determining integration site preferences of SIV, it should be located either from position 775 to 2030, from position 8015 to 9499, or from position 9689 to 9731 of the SIVmac239 proviral DNA (GenBank entry number M33262), since they are the only SIV sequences retained in the vector construct. Whether promoter and enhancer elements of MLV, which preferentially integrates into the proximities of transcriptional start sites, contribute to integration site preferences of MLV remains to be determined.
Other potential determinants of integration site preferences could be components of the vector particle or the preintegration complex. Ciuffi et al. recently reported that depletion of the cellular LEDGF/p75 protein reduced the frequency of integration of HIV-1 into transcription units (3). Since LEDGF/p75 interacts with HIV-1 integrase (2), this also suggests that the HIV-1 integrase tethers the preintegration complex to LEDGF/p75 and thereby affects integration site selection (3). However, even in LEDGF/p75-depleted cells, HIV-1 integrated more frequently into transcriptional units than would be expected from random integration (3). In a first attempt, to narrow the range of potential viral determinants, we compared integration site preferences of wild-type vector particles with those of vector particles produced in the absence of accessory genes. Although neither Vif, Vpr, nor Vpx is known to be part of the preintegration complex, all three influence the composition of the virus particles. While Vif inhibits incorporation of Apobec (reviewed in reference 13), Vpr and Vpx are incorporated into the particles. Therefore, all three might affect early events after cell entry, affecting integration site selection. In particular, Vpr has been reported to facilitate infection of nondividing cells by coupling the preintegration complex to a nuclear import pathway (9, 11). Comparing integration site preferences of vectors prepared in the absence of vif, vpr, and vpx with those of wild-type vectors revealed no evidence for a change in integration site preference. Thus, the viral determinants of integration site selection must be retained in the gag-pol, tat, or rev genes or in cis-acting DNA elements of the integrating vector construct.
This work was supported by grants from the German Research Foundation (Ue45-5/1 and FR-1732-3/1).
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