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Design, Development, and Evaluation of Gene Therapeutics Specific to KSHV-Associated Diseases

ABSTRACT: Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is the causative agent of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and two human lymphoproliferative diseases: primary effusion lymphoma and AIDS-related multicentric Castleman's disease. KSHV latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) is expressed in KSHV-infected cancer cells and is responsible for maintaining viral genomes in infected cells. Thus, LANA is an attractive target for therapeutic intervention for KSHV-associated diseases. Here, we devised a gene therapy vector using the adeno-associated virus (AAV), which capitalizes the LANA's function to tether terminal repeat (TR) containing circular genome in latently infected cells and the TR's enhancer function for KSHV inducible gene promoters. By including two TR copies with a lytic inducible gene promoter (TR2-Orip), we generated an AAV vector, which expresses an engineered thymidine kinase (TK) selectively in KSHV-infected cells. Ganciclovir (GCV), an anti-herpesvirus drug, effectively eradicated multiple KSHV-infected cells that include iPSC derived epithelial colony forming cells, but not non-KSHV-infected counterparts in the presence of AAV8-TR2-Orip-TK. In addition, AAV8-TR2-Orip-TK prevents KSHV virion production from reactivated cells, hence spreading KSHV infections from reactivated cells. Anti-cancer drugs, known to reactivate KSHV, stimulated TK expression from the vector and, therefore, synergized with AAV8 TR2-Orip-TK to induce KSHV-infected cancer cell death. Finally, the AAV8-TR2-Orip-TK with GCV completely diminished KSHV-infected cancer cells in the xenograft tumor model. Our new cancer gene therapy should augment the current clinical protocol for KS.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE289947 | GEO | 2025/02/19

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:The Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) genome consists of an approximately 140 kb unique coding region flanked by 30-40 copies of 0.8 kb terminal repeat (TR) sequence. KSHV genomes persist in latently infected cells as episomes via tethering to the host cell chromosomes, and KSHV latency associated nuclear antigen (LANA) plays a crucial role in latent episomal DNA replication and segregation during host cell mitosis by binding to TR. While TR's function in plasmid maintenance is well-established, TR’s transcription regulatory roles as gene enhancer has not been fully explored. Gene enhancer harbors transcription enzymes via arrays of transcription factors bindings and often forms phase separate nuclear body in part through recruitment of BRD4 and MED1 that contain intrinsically disordered domain. Here we show KSHV TR possesses transcription regulatory function with LANA. A series of Cleavage Under Targets & Release Using Nuclease (CUT&RUN) demonstrated that TR fragments are occupied by histone modifying enzymes that are known to interact with LANA in naturally infected cells, and the TR possessed characteristic enhancer histone modifications. The H3K4me3 and H3K27Ac modification were also conserved in unique region of the KSHV genome among three PEL cells, and the KSHV Origin of lytic replication (Ori-Lyt) showed similar protein and histone modification occupancies with TR's. In the Ori-Lyt region, the LANA protein complex colocalizes with H3K27Ac-modified nucleosome along with paused RNA polymerase II, and the nucleosome is franked by two K-Rta recruitment sites. The isolated reporter assays demonstrated that neighboring TR fragments enhanced viral lytic gene promoter activity independent of orientation in KSHV-infected and non-infected 293FT cells. K-Rta transactivation function was drastically enhanced with TR, while LANA acquired promoter repression function when the reporter was ligated with TR. The deletion of LANA acidic repeat sequence, a highly-disordered protein domain, further increased gene repression functions. Combined, the TR region is (i) an epigenetically active DNA element that is stitched within 12.5 kb (20-40 copies), (ii) has an array of transcription factor (LANA) binding sites, (iii) recruited by transcription related enzymes including BRD4 (bromodomain containing 4), (iv) decorated by histone H3K27Ac marks, and (v) possesses orientation-independent transcription activation function. KSHV TR is therefore an enhancer domain for KSHV inducible genes. However, in contrast to cellular enhancers that are bound by multiple transcription factors, perhaps KSHV enhancer is predominantly regulated by the LANA nuclear body on the TR. We suggest that KSHV evolved a clever mechanism to tightly control the latency-lytic switch with the TR/LANA complex.

Project description:Kaposi's sarcoma (KS), is an AIDS-associated neoplasm caused by the KS herpesvirus (KSHV/ HHV-8). KSHV-sarcomagenesis is the consequence of oncogenic viral gene expression as well as host genetic and epigenetic alterations. Although KSHV is invariably found in all KS lesions, the percentage of KSHV-infected (LANA+) spindle-cells of the lesion is variable, suggesting the existence of paracrine oncogenic mechanisms and/or spindle cells that have lost KSHV. A mouse model of KSHVBac36-driven tumorigenesis allowed us to induce KSHV-episome loss before and after tumor development. Although cells that lose the KSHV episome prior to tumor formation lose their tumorigenicity, explanted KSHV positive tumor cells that lost the KSHV episome remained tumorigenic. This pointed to the existence of virally-induced irreversible oncogenic alterations occurring during KSHV-tumor formation that support the possibility of hit and run viral sarcomagenesis. RNA sequencing and CpG-methylation analysis were performed on KSHV positive and negative cells, KSHV positive and KSHV negative tumors that developed following KSHV-episome loss from explanted tumor cells. When KSHV positive cells form KSHV-driven tumors, along with viral-gene upregulation there is a tendency for hypo-methylation in genes from oncogenic and differentiation pathways. In contrast, KSHV-negative tumors formed after KSHV-episome loss, show a tendency towards gene hyper-methylation when compared to KSHV-positive tumors. Regarding occurrence of host-mutations, we found the same set of innate-immunity related mutations undetected in KSHV-infected cells but present in all KSHV positive tumors, indicating that pre-existing host mutations that provide an in vivo growth advantage are clonally-selected and contribute to KSHV-tumorigenesis. In addition, KSHV negative tumors display de novo mutations related to cell proliferation that, together with the PDGFRAD842V, were responsible for driving tumorigenesis in absence of the KSHV-episomes. KSHV-induced irreversible genetic and epigenetic oncogenic alterations support the possibility of “hit and run” KSHV-sarcomagenesis consistent with the presence of LANA-negative spindle-cells in KS lesions.