Korean J Infect Dis.  2002 Feb;34(1):18-25.

Human Cytomegalovirus Immediate-Early 2Prote in Transactivates c-jun Promoter Through ATF and MEF2 Site

• Park CG
• Hwang ES
• Han TH
• Kook YH
• Cha CY

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) has the ability to activate the expression of many viral and cellular genes. The c-jun proto-oncogene has known to be induced at immediate early time of HCMV infection, however, the mechanism of up-regulation of the gene was not known. We found HCMV immediate-early (IE) 2 expression transactivate the c-jun promoter in human embryonal lung cell (HEL).
METHODS
The c-jun promoter region between -117 and -59 contains binding sites for the transcription factors Sp1, CAAT, AP-1 like (ATF/CREB), and MEF2. We tried to map the sequences in the c-jun promoter responsible for activation of the promoter by HCMV IE2 expression. Transient expression assays were performed using various reporter plasmids containing the c-jun promoter-regulatory region linked to the luciferase gene and a plasmid expressing HCMV IE2 gene.
RESULTS
Deletional and point mutational analysis showed that ATF, MEF2, and another down stream elements were involved in the up-regulation of c-jun promoter. Gel mobility shift assay showed that there are several factors in HEL cell nuclear extracts that specifically bind to these sites and in vitro translated IE2 could not move or supershift the specific bands.
CONCLUSION
This study delineate the mechanism of c-jun up-regulation in HCMV infection and would give the clue for the possible contribution of HCMV in tumorigenesis.

Keyword

HCMV; Immediate early protein2; c-jun promoter; ATF; MEF2

MeSH Terms

Binding Sites
Carcinogenesis
Cytomegalovirus*
Electrophoretic Mobility Shift Assay
Genes, jun
Humans*
Luciferases
Lung
Plasmids
Promoter Regions, Genetic
Rivers
Transcription Factor AP-1
Transcription Factors
Up-Regulation
Luciferases
Transcription Factor AP-1
Transcription Factors