Nair Ashwin, Davis David A, Warner Andrew, Karim Baktiar, Ramaswami Ramya, Yarchoan Robert
HIV and AIDS Malignancy Branch, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
Frederick National Laboratory, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS Pathog. 2025 Mar 17;21(3):e1012984. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012984. eCollection 2025 Mar.
The spindle cells of Kaposi sarcoma (KS) lesions primarily express Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) latent genes with minimal expression of lytic genes. However, recent transcriptome analyses of KS lesions have shown high expression of KSHV open reading frame (ORF) 75, which is considered a late lytic gene based on analyses in primary effusion lymphoma (PEL) lines. ORF75 encodes a pseudo-amidotransferase that is part of the viral tegument, acts as a suppressor of innate immunity, and is essential for viral lytic replication. We assessed a representative KS lesion by RNAscope and found that ORF75 RNA was expressed in the majority of latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA)-expressing cells. Luciferase fusion reporter constructs of the ORF75 promoter were analyzed for factors potentially driving its expression in KS. The ORF75 promoter construct showed high basal transcriptional activity in vitro in endothelial cells, mediated by a proximal consensus specificity protein 1 (Sp1) (GGGGCGGGGC) element along with two distal CCAAT boxes. Sp proteins formed complexes with the proximal consensus Sp1 element to activate ORF75 promoter transcription. We also found evidence that a repressive factor or factors in B cells, but not endothelial or epithelial cells, interacted with more distal elements in the ORF75 promoter region to repress constitutive ORF75 expression in B cells. Alternate forms of Sp1 were found to accumulate during latency and showed substantial enrichment during viral lytic replication in PEL cells and infected endothelial cells, but their functional significance is unclear. We also found that ORF75 can in turn upregulate its own expression and that of other KSHV genes. Thus, while ORF75 acts primarily as a lytic gene in PEL cell lines, Sp proteins induce substantial constitutive ORF75 transcription in infected endothelial cells and this can account for its high expression in KS lesions.
卡波西肉瘤(KS)病变的梭形细胞主要表达卡波西肉瘤疱疹病毒(KSHV)的潜伏基因,而裂解基因的表达极少。然而,最近对KS病变的转录组分析显示,KSHV开放阅读框(ORF)75有高表达,基于对原发性渗出性淋巴瘤(PEL)细胞系的分析,该基因被认为是一个晚期裂解基因。ORF75编码一种假氨基转移酶,它是病毒被膜的一部分,作为先天免疫的抑制剂,对病毒的裂解复制至关重要。我们通过RNAscope评估了一个代表性的KS病变,发现ORF75 RNA在大多数表达潜伏相关核抗原(LANA)的细胞中表达。对ORF75启动子的荧光素酶融合报告构建体进行分析,以寻找可能驱动其在KS中表达的因素。ORF75启动子构建体在体外内皮细胞中显示出高基础转录活性,由一个近端共有特异性蛋白1(Sp1)(GGGGCGGGGC)元件以及两个远端CCAAT框介导。Sp蛋白与近端共有Sp1元件形成复合物以激活ORF75启动子转录。我们还发现证据表明,B细胞中的一种或多种抑制因子与ORF75启动子区域中更远端的元件相互作用,从而抑制B细胞中ORF75的组成型表达,而在内皮细胞或上皮细胞中则不然。发现Sp1的不同形式在潜伏期间积累,并在PEL细胞和受感染的内皮细胞的病毒裂解复制期间大量富集,但其功能意义尚不清楚。我们还发现ORF75反过来可以上调其自身以及其他KSHV基因的表达。因此,虽然ORF75在PEL细胞系中主要作为裂解基因起作用,但Sp蛋白在受感染的内皮细胞中诱导大量的ORF75组成型转录,这可以解释其在KS病变中的高表达。