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Journal of Virology, March 2006, p. 2390-2395, Vol. 80, No. 5
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.80.5.2390-2395.2006
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Laboratory of Applied Molecular Entomology, Division of Applied Bioscience, Graduate School of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 001-8589, Japan,1 Research & Development Center, Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Takayama-cho Ikoma-shi, Nara 630-0101, Japan,2 Boyce Thompson Institute, Cornell University, Tower Road, Ithaca, New York 14853-18013
Received 29 September 2005/ Accepted 6 December 2005
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NPV is a large rod-shaped virus with a double-stranded closed circular DNA genome (130 to
160 kbp) containing approximately 150 genes (4). NPV genes are usually categorized into four groups: immediate-early, delayed-early, late, and very late (8). After infection, the immediate-early and delayed-early genes are transcribed by host RNA polymerase II and their promoters are characterized by the transcription initiation site consensus motif CAGT (25). Most of them are thought to code for the transcriptional transactivator of viral genes (33). Late and very-late genes are transcribed by viral RNA polymerase from the late promoter motif TAAG (22, 24), whose expression is regulated by the early genes. Thus, the senseful expression of early genes is key to NPV infection. The mechanism of transcription by RNA polymerase II is highly conserved among eukaryotes (14). Indeed, the promoter for immediate-early gene 1 (ie-1) of Bombyx mori NPV (BmNPV) showed the ability to promote transcription in mammalian cells in transfection experiments using reporter plasmids (21). Furthermore, the viral essential regulatory protein encoded by ie-1 (IE-1) is functional in mammalian cells (21, 23). More recently, the acidic activation domains of AcMNPV IE-1 were demonstrated to be functional for transcriptional activation in mammalian cells (12). These observations suggest that NPV could express at least part of the viral genomic information in mammalian cells and may affect the physiology of the host cells. Progress in the application of baculoviruses requires more information about the functions of AcMNPV in mammalian cells. In this study, we reexamined the gene expression of AcMNPV in mammalian cells using a DNA microarray, which suggested transcription from several viral genes and increased transcription from cellular ß-actin.
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Viruses. AcMNPV was grown in Sf9 cells in TC-100 medium containing 10% FBS at 26°C. We constructed the recombinant AcMNPV, Ac-dhspp-EGFP, using the Bac-to-Bac system (Invitrogen). This virus has an EGFP-coding sequence under the control of the Drosophila heat shock protein 70 promoter (nucleotides 1 to 1927; GenBank accession number AY032740). Viral titers were determined in Sf9 cells by plaque assay according to Maeda's method (19).
Inactivation of viruses was carried out by exposing the viral suspension (3 x 107 PFU/ml DMEM) in a sterile tissue culture dish to shortwave UV (UV-band, light 254 nm) at a distance of 30 cm for 30 min in a laminar flow hood. The inactivation of infectivity was verified by a plaque assay with Sf9 cells. The recombinant virus carrying luciferase under the control of the ie-1 promoter (rBACie1-luc) (2) was also used to examine the inactivation of viruses and demonstrated that UV-irradiation for 30 min under such conditions resulted in the loss of 99.7% of the activity to express luciferase and a lack of plaque formation (data not shown). The approach (irradiation for 30 min) was then used to prepare UV-inactivated virus.
DNA microarray.
A microarray analysis using a baculovirus DNA chip consisted of 192 spots including 140 AcMNPV genes was carried out as described elsewhere (32). In brief, total RNA was isolated using Trizol reagent (Invitrogen) and 400 pg of synthesized RNA,
polyA+RNA-A (Takara), was added in each series for normalization. The fluorescent-labeled cDNA prepared for hybridization was generated with an RNA Fluorescent Labeling Core Kit (Takara) using 30 µg of total RNA and oligo(dT) according to the manufacturer's instructions. DNA microarrays were hybridized for 10 h under coverslips with Cy5- or Cy3-dCTP (Amersham)-labeled cDNA probes, washed, dried and scanned immediately in an Affymetrix 428 Array Scanner (Affymetrix Instruments). Data were analyzed using ImaGene software (Biodiscovery Inc.).
5' RACE and Northern blot analysis. Total RNA was isolated from Sf9 or HeLa14 cells at 48 hours postinfection (hpi) as described above. 5' rapid amplification of cDNA ends was performed using the GeneRacer core Kit (Invitrogen) according to the manufacturer's instructions. Briefly, mRNAs were dephosphorylated, decapped and ligated with an adaptor oligo RNA supplied in the kit. A first PCR was then carried out with an adaptor primer from the kit and gene-specific first PCR primers (ie-1 and ie-0, 5'-GTCTGTTCAAGGGTTGCACAGC-3'; pe38, 5'-GGCTGGCGCACTGTCGTCAC-3'; gp64, 5'-AGACTGGTGCCGACGCCGCC-3'; p6.9, 5'-GCGTGTTCTGTAACTTCGGCGACC-3'). A second PCR was performed using an adaptor-specific nested primer and gene-specific nested primers (ie-1 and ie-0, 5'-AACTGGCCCACCACACCTTGTG-3; pe38, 5'-CCGTAATGCCACGTTGCGGC-3'; gp64, 5'-CGACCAGCCGCTGGCATCTTTC-3; p6.9, 5'-GGGGTCTACCCGGGCGGCGT-3'). PCR products were cloned using an AT cloning pGEM-T Easy vector system (Invitrogen) and at least four cDNA were sequenced using the ABI PRISM 310 Genetic Analyzer for each gene.
Total RNA (10 µg) isolated at the time presented in the figure was denatured and separated by electrophoresis in a 1% agarose gel, transferred to a nylon membrane (Hybond-N+; Amersham) and hybridized with oligonucleotide probes (human ß-actin, 5'-ACGTCACACTTCATGATGGAGTTGAAGGTAGTTTCGTGGATGCCACAGGACTCC ATGCCT-3'; human 18S rRNA, 5'-CTGGACCGGCCCTGCGTACTTAGACATGTATGGCTTAATCTTTGAGACAAGCATATGGTT-3') labeled with [
32-P]ATP (Amersham) using MEGALABEL (Takara). Quantitative analysis was performed with an Image Reader BAS1000 (Fuji film).
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FIG. 1. DNA microarray analysis using Cy5-labeled cDNA probes. The cDNA probes were synthesized from total RNA extracted from mock-infected cells (left) or AcMNPV-infected BHK cells (at a MOI of 30) (right). Daggers indicate the positions of the spots for ß-actin. Asterisks indicate the internal control, polyA.
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View this table: [in a new window] |
TABLE 1. Viral genes judged as positive (transcribed) in DNA microarray analysis
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FIG. 2. Mapping of the 5' ends of the transcripts for ie-1 and ie-0, gp64, and pe38 in Sf9 and HeLa14 cells at 48 hpi. (A) Schematic representation of the gene structure for ie-1 and ie-0, gp64, and pe38. The open box shows the open reading frame. Arrows on the diagram for each gene indicate the initiation sites in Sf9 cells at the early (E) or late (L) stage and in HeLa14 cells (M), respectively. (B) Sequences around the transcription initiation sites in Sf9 cells and HeLa14 cells. The arrow shows the transcription initiation site and the number in parenthesis indicates the nucleotide position relative to the transcription initiation site in Sf9 cells (+1) at the early stage (for ie-0 [16]), ie-1 (25), gp64 (9), and pe38 (20) or the late stage (for p6.9 [this paper]). The CAGT early motif and the TAAG late motif are underlined. Boldface type indicates TATA-box like and BRE-like sequences.
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phage sequences as internal controls for normalization between chips. Interestingly, the relative intensity of the signal for ß-actin on the DNA array was clearly increased in BHK cells (Fig. 1) and moderately increased in HeLa14 cells (data not shown) inoculated with AcMNPV. We then carried out Northern blot hybridization using total RNA isolated from HeLa14 cells to analyze the kinetics of the transcription of ß-actin (Fig. 3). The amount of transcript from ß-actin in HeLa14 inoculated with AcMNPV increased until 6 hpi, reached a level about 2.5-fold that of the control and then rapidly decreased, while the amount of transcript in the control cells gradually decreased until 24 hpi. A similar profile for the transcription of ß-actin was obtained from BHK cells (data not shown). UV-inactivated AcMNPV also induced upregulation of ß-actin expression at a level comparable to that induced by non-irradiated AcMNPV at 6 hpi (Fig. 3B, lanes 1 to 3).
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FIG. 3. Northern hybridization assays using 32P-labeled ß-actin and 18S rRNA cDNA probes. (A) Northern hybridization was performed using total RNA purified from AcMNPV-infected HeLa14 cells at the times shown in the panel. Kinetics of the expression of ß-actin is presented as a sequential line graph below the autoradiograph and the values are shown as the ratio of ß-actin to 18S rRNA on the basis of the signal intensities obtained from the Northern hybridization. Circles and boxes in the graph indicate the kinetics for AcMNPV-infected and mock-infected cells, respectively. (B) Northern hybridization assay using total RNA from mock-infected (1), AcMNPV-infected (MOI of 30) (2) and UV-inactivated virus-infected (3) cells. The bar graph below the autoradiograph shows the ratio of hybridization signal for ß-actin to that for 18S rRNA.
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, interlewkin-1ß beta expression in primary cultures of rat hepatocytes (5), indicating that mammalian cells could be physiologically influenced by the experimental attack with AcMNPV. More recently, AcMNPV was shown to induce an innate immunity that confers protection from a lethal challenge of influenza virus in mice through the recognition of the baculovirus genomic DNA by a Toll-like receptor molecule (1, 3). These observations are thus not in contradiction to previous observations that AcMNPV genes were not transcribed in HeLa cells inoculated with AcMNPV at a MOI of 100 PFU per cell (MOI of 100) at 24 hpi or after several passages (28). In contrast, we clearly detected the viral transcripts in mammalian cells inoculated with AcMNPV at a lower MOI (MOI of 30) using a DNA microarray and 5' RACE technologies. This discrepancy might be due to the difference in the sensitivity of the detection methods used in the two experiments. 5' RACE analysis revealed that all genes examined in this study, except pe38 and p6.9, were transcribed from an early transcription start site motif (CAGT) preceded by a TATA-motif 30 nts upstream in HeLa14 cells (Fig. 2). The CAGT motif is a part of the eukaryotic transcription initiation site sequence (initiator [INR], YYANT/AYY) (27) and the early promoters for these viral genes with a typical eukaryotic RNA polymerase II promoter structure (a conventional TATA motif and an INR) are functional in HeLa14 cells. Furthermore, the transcripts from ie-0 were observed to be precisely spliced (11) in HeLa14 cells, showing the compatibility of the splicing machinery between mammalian cells and insect cells. These observations suggested that there was no critical disadvantage in the transcription of these genes in mammalian cells. A late gene, p6.9 was also transcribed from 25 nts downstream of a TATA-like motif in the HeLa14 cells. However, the transcription initiation site was located in the coding sequence (Fig. 2). Four transcription initiation sites (nucleotide positions +112, +454, +552 and +575) were identified for pe38 in HeLa14 cells and none of them corresponded with the start sites in Sf9 cells. The most upstream site (+112) and the second site (+454) were located in the INR-like sequences CCGCAGA and CCATTGT, respectively, which were also accompanied by a TATA-motif 25 nts upstream (Fig. 2A). The sequences of surrounding the other two sites showed no significant similarity to INR but were preceded by sequences with some similarity with the TATA-motif or TFIIB recognition element G/CG/CG/ACGCC (BRE) (17, 26) 30 nts upstream (Fig. 2B). However, we could not obtain evidence for the transcript from a CAGT motif located 4 nts downstream of the transcription start site +1 for pe38 in HeLa14 cells though it was also accompanied by a TATA-motif 30 nts upstream. This suggested that the typical eukaryotic RNA polymerase II promoter structure was not sufficient to initiate transcription in the AcMNPV genome.
We happened to observe the upregulation of ß-actin expression in AcMNPV-inoculated mammalian cells in an analysis using a NPV DNA microarray containing a human ß-actin DNA spot as a control. Actin is essential for the transport of NPV to the nucleus in insect and mammalian cells (29) and is also necessary not only for constitution of the virogenic stroma but also for budding of the viruses in insect cells (6). In insect cells, AcMNPV infection induces overexpression of cellar actin and it inhibits the polyhedron synthesis and polyhedral formation, although factors stimulating actin expression are not clear (30). In order to investigate if the upregulation is related to the viral transcripts in HeLa14 cells, effects of UV-inactivated viruses on ß-actin expression were examined. UV-inactivated viruses which were expected to be impaired in the fusion capability of envelope protein by the denaturation of GP64 (1) were able to induce an upregulation of ß-actin expression compared to untreated control viruses, suggesting that the upregulation was caused by events occurring before the internalization of viral components. Thus, the significance of the AcMNPV transcript to the physiology of mammalian cells remains to be solved.
In conclusion, the results of our investigation provided evidence that AcMNPV is capable of expressing some viral genes at least at the transcription level in mammalian cells through the usual pathway of infection. These results emphasize the significance of studying the molecular details of baculovirus-mammalian cell interactions to reinforce the inability of AcMNPV to replicate in mammalian cells for facilitating the use of baculoviruses in the agrobiological, pharmaceutical, and medical fields.
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