Project description:Latent HIV-1 infection represents a barrier to virus eradication as latent HIV-1 is impervious to the effects of antiretroviral drugs and can avoid detection by the host immune system. Strategies to clear latent HIV-1 infection in patients have so far failed in clinical trials to increase the decay rate of the latent reservoir underscoring the need for continued study of HIV-1 latency. In this study, a genome-wide RNAi screen was performed to probe cellular factors involved in maintaining HIV-1 latency in HeLa cells latently infected with an HIV-1 reporter virus.
Project description:HHV-6A is a human herpesvirus that integrates into human sub telomeric regions to acquire latency. This latent virus frequently reactivates causing numerous diseases. The project was aimed to understand changes in host cell prteomics upon virus reactivation, which might helpin understanding the pathophysiology of virus reactivation.
Project description:HIV-1 Tat protein is essential for virus production. RNA-binding proteins that facilitate Tat production may be absent or downregulated in resting CD4+ T-cells, the main reservoir of latent HIV. In this study, we examined the role of Tat RNA-binding proteins on the expression of Tat and control of latent and productive infection.
Project description:The cellular insulator CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF) plays a role in HSV-1 latency through the establishment of chromatin boundaries. We previously found that the CTRL2 regulatory element downstream from the LAT enhancer is bound by CTCF during latency and undergoes CTCF eviction at early times post-reactivation in mice latent with 17Syn+ . It has been previously shown that the CTRL2 binding domain is a functional insulator with both enhancer-blocking and silencing capabilities. Considering these findings, we hypothesized that the CTRL2 site plays a key role in regulating latent HSV-1 gene expression. To test this, we used a mutant virus with a 135 bp deletion spanning only the core CTRL2 domain (DCTRL2) in the 17Syn+ background. Following ocular infection of mice, we found significant differences between DCTRL2 and wild-type virus during the acute infection and latency. Notably, mouse mortalities were significantly higher in the DCTRL2 virus compared to the 17Syn+, while lower viral genomes were found after latency indicating that deletion of CTRL2 site disrupted latency establishment. This fact, coupled with increased LAT intron and VP16 expression indicated that the establishment of latency was disrupted in the DCTRL2 mutant. These data provide evidence that chromatin domains of the latent HSV-1 genome are in part maintained by the CTRL2 binding.
Project description:Comprehensive Profiling of Epstein-Barr Virus-Encoded miRNAome Associated with Specific Latent Type in Tumor Cells Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is an etiological cause of many human lymphocytic and epithelial malignancies. EBV expressed different genes associated with three latent types. So far as many as 44 EBV-encoded miRNA species have been found but their comprehensive and comparative profiling is not well documented in three latent infection states linked to various tumor cells. In this study, we utilized the polyA-tailed quantitative real time RT-PCR procedure to measure the relative abundance of viral miRNA species that linked to individual viral genome locations in combination with microarray evaluation in a subset of representative lymphoid and epithelial tumor cells undergoing various types of EBV latent infection. The results showed that miR-BHRF1 family and miR-BART family are expressed differentially in a tissue-dependent and latency-dependent manner. In particular, in NPC tissue and the only EBV consistently harboring cell line C666-1 with latency type II, there were highly abundant miR-BART family but not miR-BHRF1 family members that accounted for more than 10% of the whole known human miRNA library, implicating their important roles in maintaining EBV latent infection and driving NPC tumorigenesis. In addition, EBV miRNAome-based clustering analysis could classify three distinct EBV latency types, meanwhile, for the first time, we found and subsequently evaluated a novel secret latent switch in BL cell line Daudi from type I to III, which was unable to be identified by traditional latent biomarkers. Together, our data provided an in-depth and comparative profiling of EBV miRNA transcriptome in correspondence with three EBV latent infections, suggesting that different viral miRNA species were involved in divergent host cell carcinogenesis. Finally, EBV miRNAome, as a cluster of novel latency biomarkers expressed variedly in tumor cells, greatly complements and improves the classical typing criteria in conjunction with other latently expressed marker genes.
Project description:Latent infection with Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is recognised as a factor in the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We found that EBV encoded Latent membrane protein 2A (LMP2A) enhances lipid accumulation significantly in NPC cells. We used microarrays to identify differential genes regulated by LMP2A in NPC cell lines.
Project description:Comprehensive Profiling of Epstein-Barr Virus-Encoded miRNAome Associated with Specific Latent Type in Tumor Cells Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is an etiological cause of many human lymphocytic and epithelial malignancies. EBV expressed different genes associated with three latent types. So far as many as 44 EBV-encoded miRNA species have been found but their comprehensive and comparative profiling is not well documented in three latent infection states linked to various tumor cells. In this study, we utilized the polyA-tailed quantitative real time RT-PCR procedure to measure the relative abundance of viral miRNA species that linked to individual viral genome locations in combination with microarray evaluation in a subset of representative lymphoid and epithelial tumor cells undergoing various types of EBV latent infection. The results showed that miR-BHRF1 family and miR-BART family are expressed differentially in a tissue-dependent and latency-dependent manner. In particular, in NPC tissue and the only EBV consistently harboring cell line C666-1 with latency type II, there were highly abundant miR-BART family but not miR-BHRF1 family members that accounted for more than 10% of the whole known human miRNA library, implicating their important roles in maintaining EBV latent infection and driving NPC tumorigenesis. In addition, EBV miRNAome-based clustering analysis could classify three distinct EBV latency types, meanwhile, for the first time, we found and subsequently evaluated a novel secret latent switch in BL cell line Daudi from type I to III, which was unable to be identified by traditional latent biomarkers. Together, our data provided an in-depth and comparative profiling of EBV miRNA transcriptome in correspondence with three EBV latent infections, suggesting that different viral miRNA species were involved in divergent host cell carcinogenesis. Finally, EBV miRNAome, as a cluster of novel latency biomarkers expressed variedly in tumor cells, greatly complements and improves the classical typing criteria in conjunction with other latently expressed marker genes. 2 NPC tissue samples and 2 NPC cell lines and 5 lymphocytic cell lines