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Journal of Virology, September 2007, p. 9230-9237, Vol. 81, No. 17
0022-538X/07/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.01054-07
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.


Department of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261
Received 15 May 2007/ Accepted 13 June 2007
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It has been shown that ICP4-mediated repression requires specifically located, appropriately oriented, and relatively strong ICP4 binding sites (24, 35, 40, 46). Biochemical studies showed that purified ICP4, TATA binding protein (TBP), and transcription factor IIB (TFIIB) cooperatively interact on ICP4 and L/ST promoters (47, 54) and that the degree of cooperative TBP-DNA-TFIIB-ICP4 complex formation correlates positively with the degree of repression of the promoters (35). ICP4 and L/ST promoters contain a TATA box and a functional ICP4 binding site. Biochemical analyses also showed that at least part of the N-terminal region of ICP4 is required for efficient cooperativity in the TBP-TFIIB-DNA-ICP4 complex formation and repression in vitro. The C-terminal region of ICP4 is dispensable for these two functions (26, 54). Less is known about how ICP4 as a DNA binding protein activates transcription. Most genetic and biochemical studies indicate that DNA binding is essential for the activating functions of ICP4 (1, 44, 51). However, mutational alteration of the binding sites in and around the promoters of activated genes appears to have little effect (25, 53). At present, it is unclear how the specific DNA binding of ICP4 is involved in ICP4-mediated activation. There could be mechanisms that increase the affinity of ICP4 for DNA and/or allow ICP4 to work over a long distance. Cellular DNA binding proteins, such as high-mobility-group proteins, TATA box binding proteins, and initiator binding proteins, may be involved in ICP4-mediated gene activation in this way (8, 33, 35, 42). In the present study, we observed that ICP4 forms two (or more) protein-DNA complexes with longer DNA probes containing a single effective ICP4 binding site. Our results showed that ICP4 forms tetramers and higher-order complexes over long DNA fragments through multiple protein-protein and protein-DNA contacts. Such binding may affect the affinity of ICP4 for DNA, particularly DNA containing relatively weak binding sites. Our results may explain how ICP4 activates early and late genes that may not have strong and indispensable ICP4 binding sites.
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Plasmids and DNA probes.
The plasmids pk1-2, containing the ICP4 gene starting from position –330 relative to the start site (13), and pBend4, containing a fragment of the ICP4 promoter from positions –40 to +27 relative to the start site, have previously been described (35). The plasmid pBend4R is similar to pBend4 except that the ICP4 binding site is reversed in orientation. Double-stranded oligonucleotides equivalent to the gC promoter region spanning positions +75 to +125 (including the ICP4 binding site) were cloned in plasmid pBend (34). The resulting recombinant plasmid, pBendG, was cut with the appropriate restriction endonucleases to generate DNA probes GR and GH with ICP4 binding sites located very close to the left and right ends, respectively, of the DNA probes. All the newly constructed plasmids were sequenced to confirm the integrity of the constructs. To make DNA probes, the plasmids were digested with the appropriate restriction endonuclease and then dephosphorylated by treating them with alkaline phosphatase. Alkaline phosphatase was inactivated by phenol extraction. DNA was ethanol precipitated, air dried, and then phosphorylated using T4 polynucleotide kinase in the presence of [
-32P]ATP. To prepare strand-specific labeled DNA probes, a small fragment of DNA from one or the other end of the labeled probes was removed by digesting the probes with a restriction endonuclease. The labeled DNA fragments were resolved on 5% polyacrylamide gels, the proper bands were located by exposing the gels to photographic films, and the bands were excised. The DNA present in the gel slice was electroeluted or purified by filtration using Spin-X cartridges (Costar, Cambridge, MA). Electroeluted DNA was further purified using Elutip-d mini columns (Schleicher and Schuell, Keene, NH) and Sephadex G50 spin columns (Roche, Indianapolis, IN).
Electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA). DNA binding reactions and the subsequent gel shift analyses were performed as previously described (54) with slight modifications. Unless otherwise indicated, 40 ng of ICP4 or mutant ICP4 was incubated with 1 ng of DNA probe in a buffer containing 10 mM HEPES-KOH (pH 7.9), 5 mM ammonium sulfate, 8% (vol/vol) glycerol, 2% (wt/vol) polyethylene glycol 8000, 80 mM KCl, 5 mM ß-mercaptoethanol, 0.2 mM EDTA, and 25 µg/ml poly(dG-dC)·poly(dG-dC) in a total volume of 30 µl for 40 min at 30°C. For monoclonal antibody supershift experiments, diluted monoclonal antibodies were added to the binding reactions 30 min after initial incubation. The mixtures were incubated for an additional 10 minutes prior to being loaded onto the gel. The binding mixtures were electrophoretically resolved under constant voltage (12.5 V/cm) on a native 3% polyacrylamide gel containing 0.5x TBE (45 mM Tris, 45 mM borate, and 1 mM EDTA [pH 8.0]) buffer. The gels were dried and exposed to Hyperfilm MP (Amersham, Arlington Heights, IL). For quantitative analyses, the dried gels were scanned using the Ambis radioanalytic imaging system (Ambis Inc., San Diego, CA).
DNase I footprinting. ICP4 or mutant ICP4 (40 ng) was incubated with 1 ng of DNA end-labeled probe in the binding buffer (described above). The mixture was incubated at 30°C for 40 min, subjected to DNase I digestion, and then resolved on a 3% polyacrylamide gel by electrophoresis as described previously (54). The DNA probes were labeled at the 5' end of the top or the bottom strand. The bound and free DNA bands were located by exposing the wet gel (covered with Saran Wrap) to photographic film. The bands were excised, and the DNA was eluted by soaking the gel slice overnight in a buffer (0.5 ml) containing 10 mM Tris-HCl (pH 8.0), 1 mM EDTA, and 0.5 M ammonium acetate. The eluted DNA was purified using an Elutip-d mini column (Schleicher and Schuell) and resolved on a 6% polyacrylamide sequencing gel containing 7.3 M urea. A Maxam-Gilbert sequencing reaction (38) for the same probe was resolved in the same gel as that of the marker. After electrophoresis, the gel was dried and then exposed to photographic film.
Calculation of KD. Constant amounts of ICP4 were incubated with increasing concentrations of radiolabeled DNA ligand under standard binding conditions except that the poly(dG-dC)·poly(dG-dC)·poly(dG-dC) concentration was 10 µg/ml (to obtain measurable amounts of ICP4-DNA complexes with weaker binding sites). The reaction products were resolved on native polyacrylamide gels and the net radioactivities corresponding to the bound and free DNA bands were measured from the dried gels by using the Ambis radioanalytic imager. The values were then used to calculate the apparent equilibrium dissociation constant (KD) from the Scatchard equation, where a plot of DNAbound/DNAfree versus DNAbound is a straight line with a slope of 1/KD (48).
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FIG. 1. ICP4-DNA complexes with ICP4 promoter and start site DNA. (A) DNA probes generated from the ICP4 promoter (drawn to scale). The probes were generated from plasmid pk1-2 by digestion with the restriction endonucleases shown above (R, EcoRI; B, BamHI; S, SalI). The TATA box and the ICP4 binding sites are indicated by filled and empty boxes, respectively. The numbers indicate nucleotide positions relative to the start site of transcription. The start site is indicated by a bent arrow, and the orientation of the ICP4 binding site is indicated by a straight arrow. (B) Results of an EMSA of ICP4-DNA complexes formed with probes 1, 2, and 3. The mixtures of the reactions corresponding to lanes 2, 6, and 10 contained 20 ng ICP4. Those corresponding to lanes 3, 7, and 11 contained 70 ng ICP4. Those corresponding to lanes 4, 8, and 12 contained 200 ng ICP4. The binding reaction mixtures loaded in lanes 1, 5, and 9 lacked ICP4. The mixtures for reactions 1 to 4, 5 to 8, and 9 to 12 were loaded at three different times (probe 1 was loaded first, followed by probe 2 and then probe 3) to resolve all lanes in the same gel. The A and B complexes are indicated by single and double dots, respectively. The additional complex formed with probe 3 is indicated by an arrow.
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10 bp of DNA downstream of the ICP4 binding site) but both A and B complexes with probes PR and GR (both probes contained
100 bp of DNA downstream of the ICP4 binding site). To find out the minimal length of DNA needed for effective B complex formation, we inserted a fragment of the ICP4 promoter containing the ICP4 binding site (positions –40 to +27 relative to the start site) into the pBend2 vector (30) and made a series of circularly permutated DNA probes (Fig. 2C). The DNA probes are identical in DNA sequence, but the ICP4 binding sites are positioned at different distances from the ends of the probes. The probes were incubated with a fixed concentration of ICP4, and the resulting complexes were separated electrophoretically. ICP4 formed only an A complex with probes M and N (Fig. 2D). These two probes have a short stretch of DNA (<45 bp) downstream of the ICP4 binding site. However, ICP4 formed both A and B complexes (Fig. 2D, lanes S, D, A, and P) with the rest of the probes. These probes contained >70 bp of DNA downstream of the ICP4 binding site. We constructed another set of circularly permutated probes identical to those shown in Fig. 2C except that the orientation of the ICP4 binding site was reversed. ICP4 formed both A and B complexes with all of the probes (Fig. 2D, right). The reverse orientation of the ICP4 binding site in these probes extended the length of DNA downstream of the ICP4 binding site by >70 bp.
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FIG. 2. A long stretch of DNA downstream of the ICP4 binding site is required for B complex formation. (A) Maps of the four DNA probes (all 125 bp) containing one ICP4 promoter (black boxes) or gC (hashed boxes) downstream of the ICP4 binding site. The orientation of the ICP4 binding site is indicated by an arrow. (B) Results of an EMSA of ICP4 bound to probes in panel A. A and B complexes are indicated. The unbound probe is not shown. (C) Map of ICP4 binding site-containing probes. The plasmid pBend4 was digested with different restriction enzymes (M, MluI; N, NheI; S, SpeI; D, DraI; A, SmaI; P, SspI) to generate the probes (M, N, S, D, A, and P). The TATA box (black box) and the ICP4 binding site (white box with an arrow indicating the orientation of the binding site) are indicated. The location of the ICP4 binding site relative to the ends of the probe is drawn to scale. The probes m, n, s, d, a, and p generated from pBend4R are identical to probes M, N, S, D, A, and P, respectively, except that the orientation of the ICP4 binding site is reversed. (D) Results of an EMSA of ICP4 bound to probes M, N, S, D, A, and P and m, n, s, d, a, and p. The EMSA was conducted with the probes in panel C as described in the legend to Fig. 1. The different mobilities of the A complexes are due to ICP4-induced DNA bends as reported earlier (35).
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FIG. 3. ICP4 domains required for B complex formation. (A) Schematic diagrams of WT ICP4 and different deletion mutants (drawn to scale). The numbers on the top indicate the amino acid positions. The map of the known domains of ICP4 (indicated by empty boxes) was adapted from references 14 and 50. (B) Results of an EMSA of mutant and WT ICP4 DNA complexes. Purified WT ICP4 and the mutant proteins were incubated with DNA probes derived from plasmids pk1-2 (lanes 2 to 6) and pBend4 (probe D) (lanes 8 to 12). Lanes 1 and 7 contained reaction mixtures lacking protein.
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FIG. 4. B complex formation involves protein-protein interactions. (A) Schematic diagrams of ICP4 and En208. The locations of the epitopes recognized by the monoclonal antibodies 58S (black box) and 12CA5 (black oval) are indicated. The numbers on the top indicate the amino acid positions. (B) ICP4 and/or En208 was incubated with probe pBend4D (Fig. 2C) for mobility shift assays. Monoclonal antibodies 58S and 12CA5 were added to the indicated reactions. En208 formed only an A complex (white circle), which was supershifted by 12CA5 (black circle). ICP4 formed both A (single white diamond) and B (double white diamonds) complexes (lane 2), which were supershifted by 58S (corresponding black diamonds) (lane 4). ICP4 and En208 did not form a mixed complex (lane 5) to be supershifted by 58S (lane 6) or 12CA5 (lane 7) or both 12CA5 and 58S (lane 8).
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FIG. 5. Number of ICP4 dimers present in the B complex. (A) Schematic diagram showing EICP4 and d810. The locations of the epitopes recognized by 58S (black box) and 12CA5 (black oval) are indicated. The numbers on the top indicate the amino acid positions. (B) ICP4 DNA complexes formed between EICP4 and d810 with the probe pBend4D (Fig. 2C). The indicated proteins and monoclonal antibodies, 58S and 12CA5, were added to the indicated reactions. EICP4 and d810 formed a unique B complex (lane 5, indicated by a white star) in addition to the A and B complexes formed by EICP4 and d810. This additional B complex was supershifted by 12CA5 (lane 6, indicated by a black star). The A complexes are indicated by a white circle and a white diamond for d810 and EICP4, respectively; the B complexes are indicated by double white circles and double white diamonds for d810 and EICP4, respectively. The supershifted A and B complexes are indicated by the corresponding black circle or black diamonds. The lack of adequate resolution prevented the identification of the complexes formed in lanes 7 and 8.
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FIG. 6. ICP4 contacts DNA outside its cognate binding site in the B complex. (A) Schematic diagram identifying the ICP4-DNA and n208-DNA complexes. (B) DNase I protection for the top strand of the probe by ICP4 and n208. (C) DNase I protection for the bottom strand of the probe by ICP4. A, ICP4-DNA A complex; A'', n208-DNA A complex; B, ICP4-DNA B complex; F, free DNA in ICP4-DNA binding reaction; F'', free DNA in n208-DNA binding reaction; M, CT- or G-specific sequencing ladder of the probe. The specific ICP4 binding site and extra DNA sequence (Seq.) protected are shown by vertical lines.
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FIG. 7. Probes used for determining KD of ICP4-DNA complexes. The probes are drawn to scale. Probe 1, equivalent to ICP4 promoter positions –16 to +15; probe 3, equivalent to ICP4 promoter positions –108 to +177; probe 7, equivalent to gC promoter positions +75 to +124, all relative to the transcription start site; probe GR, probe 7 trailed by 75 bp of plasmid DNA; probe GH, probe 7 appended downstream of 75 bp of plasmid DNA. The KD value for probe 7 was estimated to be 1 x 10–6 to 2 x 10–6 M; the value was difficult to determine due to the high degree of dissociation of the DNA-protein complex.
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Data from previous reports (3, 15) indicated DNA-dependent oligomerization of ICP4. It was reported that ICP4 formed both low-mobility and high-mobility complexes with a latency-associated promoter but only a high-mobility complex with an ICP4 promoter (3). The low-mobility complexes with an ICP4 promoter were not obtained presumably because of the small size of the DNA probes used. It was also reported earlier that ICP4 formed higher-order complexes with the ICP4 promoter but contacted DNA only in the consensus binding site (15). The low-mobility complexes were presumably formed through protein-protein interactions alone, or the additional complexes were not stable enough to withstand the highly active and low-molecular-weight DNA cleaving reagent (1,10-phenanthroline-copper) employed for the protection experiments (15). We observed that DNA-dependent oligomerization of ICP4 involved DNA contacts in the specific binding site and another stretch of DNA about 50 bp downstream. We found that the DNA sequence of the additional protected patch was 5'-GCTAGCATCGATCCATGGA-3'. This sequence does not constitute an ICP4 binding site. The sequence is present upstream of the ICP4 binding site (in pBend4 probes M and N) (Fig. 2C), but the sequence did not cause the formation of the B complex nor was it protected from DNase I in the A complex (Fig. 6B).
Structure of oligomerized ICP4. ICP4 is an obligatory dimer in solution (39). The results presented here indicate that B complex formation involves protein-protein interactions requiring the C termini of the interacting ICP4 dimers. Several lines of evidence attest this point: (i) ICP4 mutants lacking the C-terminal region were unable to form the B complex, (ii) deletion within the N-terminal region of the protein did not affect B complex formation, and (iii) an N-terminal domain mutant formed heterotetramers with WT ICP4. In addition, a specific ICP4 binding site and a downstream nonspecific stretch of DNA were required for oligomerization. We conclude that the B complex we analyzed in this study consists of two dimers of ICP4 interacting with each other. One of the interacting dimers interacts with a specific binding site, and another interacts with nonspecific DNA downstream of the specific binding. The requirement for DNA on only one side of the ICP4 binding site attests to the asymmetric nature of the ICP4 binding site and possibly ICP4 itself. However, it should be noted that higher-order complexes appeared in the EMSA when the conditions were right for B complex formation (Fig. 1 and 3). This suggests that higher-order oligomers can form. It has previously been reported that ICP4 may almost coat the viral genome early in infection (17). The interactions described in this study may be the basis for this phenomenon. The experiments conducted in this study were performed by EMSA, in which a large excess of nonspecific competitor was used. An intended outcome of this was the visualization of complexes requiring some specific protein-DNA interactions. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the DNA-dependent multimerization of ICP4 may not require specific protein-DNA interactions in virus-infected cells. Considering this possibility, using reconstituted in vitro transcription and gC promoter templates of defined composition and length downstream of the TATA box, we have previously observed that the requirement for DNA-protein contacts could be met by the presence of an ICP4 binding site in the leader, by the presence of a site more than 150 nucleotides further downstream, by the presence of an inserted site that normally acts to repress transcription, or by the addition of sufficient non-site-containing DNA (25).
Function of oligomerized ICP4. Our results show that ICP4 has relatively high affinity (KD = 35 nM) for a binding site at the start of P4 transcription and that oligomerization does not dramatically increase the stability of binding (only threefold). For a weaker ICP4 binding site, the affinities of ICP4 for short and long DNA fragments differed by more than 2 orders of magnitude. Such an increase in affinity may play a significant role in ICP4-mediated transcriptional activation under physiological conditions. These data suggest that ICP4 may interact with long DNA molecules with multiple weak binding sites as effectively as with its DNA containing one strong binding site. A somewhat similar finding was reported previously, where it was observed that a slow-moving complex formed by ICP4 with a latency-associated prompter binding site dissociated much slower than the fast-moving complex formed by an ICP4 binding site probe (3). ICP4 binding sites located at gC and gD promoters are dispensable for the activation of the promoters (25, 53). If B complex formation significantly increases the affinity of ICP4 for DNA, a relatively weak binding site located in the appended DNA may serve as a docking site for ICP4 for subsequent promoter activation, particularly if ICP4 can extend its reach, so to speak, by oligomerizing on the viral genome. This in turn could further promote the assembly of transcription preinitiation complexes through protein-protein interactions between ICP4 and TFIID (7, 23).
n208 (which is unable to form a B complex) activates transcription very poorly from supercoiled DNA templates in vitro and activates only a subset of viral genes during infection (7, 14). The burst size of n208 is over 600-fold lower than that of WT HSV (14). The lack of activation by C-terminal domain mutants indirectly indicates that ICP4-ICP4 interactions involved in B complex formation may be important in ICP4-mediated activation. B complex formation, however, is apparently not essential for ICP4-mediated repression in vitro. For example, n208 efficiently represses transcription from promoters containing a single relatively strong ICP4 binding site located at the start site of transcription (26). ICP4-mediated repression from such promoters may depend more on ICP4-TBP-TFIIB cooperative interactions (26, 35, 54) and DNA distortion by TBP (28, 31, 32, 36) and ICP4 (18, 35). However, B complex formation may be important for repression as well when the ICP4 binding site is not strong.
The C-terminal region of ICP4 is involved in other protein-protein interactions. ICP4 and analogs in other herpesviruses interact with TFIID in vitro (2, 7, 23). Biochemical studies have shown that the C-terminal region of ICP4 and TAF250 of TFIID are directly involved in ICP4-TFIID interaction (7). Biochemical studies have also shown that the HSV regulatory protein ICP0 interacts with the C-terminal region of ICP4 (58). The C-terminal region of ICP4 is a large domain and may provide interfaces for many different interacting factors. The C-terminal regions of ICP4 analogs are highly conserved among different alphaherpesviruses (9, 57). The available data indicate that even small mutations in the C-terminal domain of ICP4 significantly alter the biological activities of the protein (6, 10). Studies are under way to determine the region within the C-terminal domain of ICP4 involved in DNA-dependent oligomerization to explore its contribution activation independent of other functions in the C-terminal region of ICP4.
Published ahead of print on 20 June 2007. ![]()
Present address: Department of Biology, Utah Valley State College, Orem, UT 84058. ![]()
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4) promoter and a specific binding site for the IE175 (ICP4) protein. J. Virol. 62:4307-4320.This article has been cited by other articles:
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