Trang Phong, Liu Fenyong
Division of Infectious Diseases, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, USA.
Methods Mol Biol. 2004;252:437-50. doi: 10.1385/1-59259-746-7:437.
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) represents one of the most medically important human viruses and causes a wide spectrum of human diseases, including birth defects and mental retardation in newborns, common opportunistic infections in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) patients (e.g., CMV-associated retinitis and pneumonia), and possibly cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. This chapter describes the utilization of RNase P ribozyme-specifically, M1GS ribozyme, as a gene-targeting agent for blocking HCMV gene expression and growth. The target for the RNase P ribozyme is the overlapping region of the mRNAs that code for HCMV major transcription factors IE1 and IE2, which are essential for viral gene expression and replication. The methods described in this chapter focus primarily on i) construction of the retroviral vector for expression of M1GS ribozymes in cultured cells, ii) generation of stable cell lines expressing ribozymes, iii) determination of the expression of M1GS RNAs in human cells, and iv) evaluation of the efficacy of ribozymes in inhibiting HCMV IE1/IE2 expression and viral growth. Using these methods, we successfully constructed M1GS RNAs against the IE1/IE2 mRNA sequence and recently showed that a reduction of up to 150- to 3000-fold in HCMV growth is found in cells that express the ribozymes.
人巨细胞病毒(HCMV)是医学上最重要的人类病毒之一,可引发多种人类疾病,包括新生儿出生缺陷和智力发育迟缓、获得性免疫缺陷综合征(AIDS)患者常见的机会性感染(如CMV相关视网膜炎和肺炎),还可能引发心血管疾病,如动脉粥样硬化。本章描述了核糖核酸酶P核酶(特别是M1GS核酶)作为一种基因靶向剂用于阻断HCMV基因表达和生长的应用。核糖核酸酶P核酶的作用靶点是编码HCMV主要转录因子IE1和IE2的mRNA的重叠区域,这两个转录因子对于病毒基因表达和复制至关重要。本章所述方法主要集中在以下几个方面:i)构建用于在培养细胞中表达M1GS核酶的逆转录病毒载体;ii)生成表达核酶的稳定细胞系;iii)测定人细胞中M1GS RNA的表达;iv)评估核酶抑制HCMV IE1/IE2表达和病毒生长的效果。使用这些方法,我们成功构建了针对IE1/IE2 mRNA序列的M1GS RNA,并且最近发现,在表达核酶的细胞中,HCMV生长最多可降低150至3000倍。