Previous Article | Next Article ![]()
Journal of Virology, August 1999, p. 6566-6572, Vol. 73, No. 8
Departments of
Stomatology1 and Laboratory
Medicine,2 University of California, San
Francisco, California
Received 26 January 1999/Accepted 12 May 1999
Hairy leukoplakia (HL) is a proliferative lesion of the tongue that
supports abundant Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) replication. Previous work
showed high-level expression of the EBV BMRF2 gene in HL. To
characterize the regulation of BMRF2 expression in HL, we mapped the 5'
ends of the BMRF1 and BMRF2 transcripts and showed that BMRF2 is
expressed from a novel internal promoter within the BMRF1 coding
region. Mechanisms of BMRF2 regulation were compared in oral epithelial
cells and B lymphocytes, as were those of BMRF1 and BDLF3, early and
late EBV transcripts, respectively, that are also known to be expressed
in HL. Basal activity of the putative BMRF2 promoter was 10-fold higher
in HSC-3 epithelial cells than in B lymphocytes. The BMRF2 and the
BDLF3 promoters were responsive to induction by phorbol ester, but
unlike the BMRF1 promoter, they were not responsive to BZLF1
transactivation. By mutational analysis, the major activity of the
BMRF2 promoter mapped to a 50-bp region, which includes a TATA-like
element and a GC box. The BMRF2 promoter may be regulated
differentially from the BMRF1 promoter and more closely resembles that
of BDLF3. This novel BMRF2 promoter likely belongs to a class of viral
promoters that is more responsive to mechanisms known to induce
epithelial cell differentiation, consistent with its high level of
expression in HL.
0022-538X/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Regulation of Epstein-Barr Virus Promoters in Oral
Epithelial Cells and Lymphocytes
and
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of
Stomatology, 521 Parnassus, Box 0512, University of California, San
Francisco, CA 94143-0512. Phone: (415) 476-1574. Fax: (415) 476-4204. E-mail: joelp{at}pangloss.ucsf.edu.
Present address: Department of Infectious Diseases, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA 94305-5428.
This article has been cited by other articles:
Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology. For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»