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Journal of Virology, August 2008, p. 7988-7999, Vol. 82, No. 16
0022-538X/08/$08.00+0 doi:10.1128/JVI.00894-08
Copyright © 2008, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
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Yuan-Shau Chang,
Jeng-Kuan Jwo, and
Wen Chang*
Institute of Molecular Biology, Academia Sinica, 128, Sec. 2, Academia Rd., Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan, Republic of China
Received 28 April 2008/ Accepted 2 June 2008
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Vaccinia virus, the well-studied prototype of the Orthopoxvirus genus in the family Poxviridae, has a wide range of infectivity in many cell lines and animals (20). It produces several forms of infectious particles, of which the vaccinia intracellular mature virus (IMV) is the most abundant in cells (see reference 14 and references therein). An IMV is enclosed by a single envelope and contains more than 70 viral proteins (11, 45, 65).
The molecular mechanism of vaccinia IMV entry remains largely unknown. IMV binds to ubiquitous cellular attachment factors, such as glycosaminoglycans (12, 27) and the extracellular matrix protein laminin (10). It is not known whether IMV recognizes additional cellular coreceptors to trigger the postbinding fusion step, although virus entry through fusion with the plasma membrane (3, 9, 19, 37) or intracellular compartments (16, 58) has been reported. Interestingly, IMV has been shown to trigger cellular signaling during virus entry (2, 37, 44), but the molecular pathway of virus uptake has not been characterized.
In this study, we characterized the mechanism by which vaccinia virus enters HeLa cells and investigated cellular factors that are important for vaccinia virus entry.
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Construction of a fluorescent recombinant vaccinia virus expressing the core protein A4L fused to mCherry (mCherry-VV). (i) Plasmid construction. Fusion of mCherry to the N terminus of A4L was achieved by PCR splicing by overlap extension (25) using vaccinia virus strain WR genomic DNA as the template. Oligonucleotides 1, 5'-CTCCGTTGAATTCGATGACTATAGGACAAGAACCCTCCTC-3', and 2, 5'-ATCCTCCTCGCCCTTGCTCACCATTTAAGGCTTTAAAATTGAATTGCG-3', were used to generate a 463-bp PCR product located upstream of the A4L gene open reading frame (ORF). Oligonucleotides 3, 5'-GGCATGGACGAGCTGTACAAGGACTTCTTTAACAAGTTCTCACA GGGG-3', and 4, 5'-CGTACTCCAAGCTTGTGTAGATGCTACTTCGTCGATGG-3', were used to generate a 1,215-bp PCR fragment containing the A4L gene ORF and the 346 bp downstream of the A4L gene ORF. The mCherry gene ORF was amplified using pmCherry (51) as the template and oligonucleotides 5, 5'-ATGGTGAGCAAGGGCGAGGAGGAT-3', and 6, 5'-CTTGTACAGCTCGTCCATGCC-3', generating a 711-bp fragment. Oligonucleotides 1 and 4 introduced EcoRI and HindIII restriction sites, respectively (underlined), while oligonucleotides 2 and 3 contained mCherry gene sequences enabling the individual fragments to be assembled into a single 2,389-bp gene. This PCR product was cloned into TOPO pCDNA3.1 to form pA4L-mCherry-N.
(ii) Recombinant virus selection. 293T cells were infected with vaccinia virus WR at 5 PFU per cell and transfected using Lipofectamine (Invitrogen) with the DNA fragment produced by EcoRI and HindIII digestion of pA5L-EGFP-N. The cell lysates were collected at 24 h postinfection. Recombinant viruses expressing mCherry were identified by fluorescence and subsequently underwent three rounds of plaque purification on BSC-40 cells.
Time-lapse microscopy. HeLa cells grown to 70% confluence on coverslips were infected at 100 PFU/cell at 37°C for 30 min with purified A4L-mCherry-expressing IMV. Where indicated (see the Fig. 1 legend), 0.5 µM latrunculin A (Invitrogen) and 2.5 µM taxol (Sigma) were added for 30 min at 37°C before and during virus infection. The cells were maintained in dishes in DMEM without phenol red medium (Gibco-Invitrogen); the dishes were placed on a microscope stage for preheating to 37°C in 5% CO2 before virus addition. The cells were observed on a Zeiss Axiovert 200 M microscope with a x63, 1.25-numerical-aperture Plan-NEOFluar oil lens using Zeiss AxioVision Rel. 4.6 software. Images were acquired at 30-s intervals for 60 frames at times between 0 and 30 min postinfection.
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FIG. 1. Vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells. (A) Live-imaging recording of mCherry-VV movement by time-lapse immunofluorescence microscopy. HeLa cells were infected with purified mCherry-VV IMV, and time series images were immediately collected every 30 s. The arrows and red dots show the moving mCherry-VV particles. (B) IMV movement is actin dependent. HeLa cells were pretreated with 0.5 µM latrunculin A and 2.5 µM taxol, infected with mCherry-VV, and recorded as described for panel A. (C) IMV entry requires actin polymerization. (Top) HeLa cells were treated with 2.5 µM taxol alone or 2.5 µM taxol plus 0.25 µM latrunculin A (LatA) as described for panel B, fixed, and stained with Cy5-phalloidin. Taxol was added in these cells to stabilize cell shapes and had no effect on actin polymerization. (Bottom) HeLa cells, treated with LatA as described above were infected with IMV (MOI = 40) at 37°C for 1 h and fixed for virus penetration assays to detect the uncoated viral core in cells. (D) Endocytosed IMV in HeLa cells. (E) Quantification of intravesicular virions, with 10 images for each time point. (F) Penetration of vaccinia IMV into HeLa cells is blocked by BFLA. HeLa cells were pretreated with DMSO, treated with 50 or 200 nM BFLA in DMSO, infected with IMV at 37°C for 60 min, fixed, permeabilized, and stained with anticore A4L (green) Abs and DAPI (blue) as described in Materials and Methods. The photos show merged images of uncoated cores (green) and nuclei (blue) in the infected cells treated with DMSO or 50 nM BFLA (BFLA-50).
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To generate a glutathione S-transferase (GST)-VPEF fusion construct, the VPEF cDNA was digested with SalI to release the insert VPEF cDNA, which was subcloned into pGEN-KG to generate the GST-VPEF plasmid (12). To generate the VPEF-green fluorescent protein (GFP) construct, the full-length cDNA was PCR amplified and cloned in frame into TOPO vector pcDNA3.1/CT-GFP (Invitrogen) so that GFP was fused at the C terminus. Sequencing was performed to ensure that no mutation was introduced during PCR. Wild-type caveolin-1 DNA was generated by reverse transcription-PCR and cloned into pcDNA3.1/CT-GFP to give the caveolin-GFP plasmid. Construct Cav1
1-81 DNA was generated as described previously for construct DN-Cav3 (47).
Soluble protein expression and purification. For protein expression, Escherichia coli strain BL21(DE3) was transformed with GST-VPEF or control GST plasmids and then the cultures were induced with 0.2 mM isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactopyranoside (IPTG) for 20 h at 17°C and harvested. GST and GST-VPEF fusion proteins were purified using glutathione beads as described previously (12). The purified proteins were dialyzed against phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at 4°C and concentrated on Amicon ultracentrifugal filters (Millipore) before use.
Electron microscopy of IMV entry into HeLa cells. Cell morphology during vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells was monitored as described previously, with some modifications (31). A suspension of purified wild type IMVs (200 PFU/cell) or G3 mutant IMVs in 0.3 ml of DMEM was applied to a HeLa monolayer in a 12-well tissue culture plate that had been equilibrated for 30 min at 4°C. The plate was placed in a (no. 5782) bucket in a GP8R centrifuge (International Equipment Company), and virus was pelleted onto the cells at 350 x g for 1 h at 4°C. Subsequently, the cells were cultured in normal medium at 37°C for 0, 5, 15, or 30 min before fixation. The fixed cells were treated with 1% OsO4, dehydrated, and embedded as described previously (56). After embedding, the cells were stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate and analyzed under a Zeiss 902 transmission electron microscope (46).
Confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. (i) Virion binding and penetration assays. The virion binding assay measuring the amount of cell surface-bound virions was performed as described previously (13, 50, 63). The virion penetration assay measuring the intracellular uncoated cores, which can be stained only with anti-A4 core Abs after virus entry, was also performed as described previously (13, 49, 62). In brief, HeLa cells were infected for 1 h at 4°C with wild-type virus at a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 40 PFU/cell, washed three times with PBS, and either fixed immediately (for the virion binding assay) or incubated for 2 h at 37°C in the presence of cycloheximide (30 µg/ml) and then fixed (for the virus penetration assay). The cells were fixed, permeabilized in PBS-0.2% saponin, and stained with rabbit anti-A4L Abs or mouse anti-L1R MAb, followed by FITC-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG Abs or Cy5-conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG Abs, respectively. DNA was visualized by staining with 0.5 µg/ml of DAPI (4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole dihydrochloride; Molecular Probes). Cell images were collected with an LSM510 Meta confocal laser scanning microscope (Carl Zeiss, Germany) using a 63x objective lens and confocal microscopy software (release 2.8; Carl Zeiss). The fluorescent particles were counted from multiple photos, and the averaged numbers of surface-bound virions and uncoated cores per cell were determined.
(ii) Soluble protein blocking assay. Fifty, 100, or 200 µg/ml of GST or GST-VPEF was preincubated with virus (MOI = 40) at 4°C for 30 min. The mixture was then added to HeLa cells to initiate virus infection at 4°C for 60 min (for virus binding assays) or at 37°C for 2 h (for the penetration assay). These cells were washed, fixed and stained for viral L1 and core protein as described above for virion binding and penetration assays (11, 49, 61).
(iii) Ab blocking assay. One, 5, 10, or 50 µg/ml of anti-M2 Abs or anti-TfR Abs was preincubated with HeLa cells at 37°C for 1 h, and then the cells were washed with PBS, and used for virus binding and penetration assays as described above for virion binding and penetration assays.
(iv) Patching analyses. Patching of cell surface proteins with Abs was performed as described previously (55). HeLa cells were seeded on coverslips in 12-well plates and then were infected on the next day with vaccinia virus at an MOI of 50 PFU/cell in DMEM for 1 h, washed, and transferred to 12°C for patching of lipid rafts. The cells were incubated at 12°C for 1 h with a primary Ab (anti-vaccinia virus [diluted 1:500], anti-L1R MAb [diluted 1:400], anti-VPEF [3.3 µg/ml], or anti-TfR [50 µg/ml]) or Alexa Fluor 594-CTB (10 µg/ml) (Molecular Probes, Invitrogen), and then tetramethylrhodamine-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG (diluted 1:500) or Cy5-conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG (diluted 1:500) (1.5 mg/ml; Jackson ImmunoResearch Laboratories) was added for 30 min. The cells were then fixed for 5 min with 3.7% paraformaldehyde in PBS on ice and then methanol for 10 min at –20°C, mounted in Vectashield medium (Vector Laboratories, Burlingame, CA), and visualized by confocal laser scanning microscopy with an LSM 5 Pascal instrument (Carl Zeiss) using a 63x objective lenses and accompanying software.
(v) Ligand endocytosis assay. HeLa cells were seeded on coverslips 1 day before the experiment to allow growth to 80% confluence. For transferrin uptake analyses (modified from that in reference 6), cells were starved in serum-free DMEM for 2 h at 37°C and then incubated in complete medium containing 25 µg/ml of Cy5- or Texas Red-conjugated transferrin (Molecular Probes, Invitrogen) at 37°C for 30 min before fixation for confocal microscopy analyses. For CTB and dextran uptake (procedure modified from those in references 5 and 53, respectively), cells were incubated at 37°C in complete medium with 8 µg/ml of Alexa Fluor 594-conjugated CTB or 10 mg/ml of FITC-conjugated dextran (molecular weight, 10,000; Molecular Probes, Invitrogen) for 40 min before fixation for confocal microscopy analyses. Alternatively, these ligand-treated cells were cooled on ice, washed twice with cold PBS, fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde, and permeabilized in PBS-0.2% saponin. Cells were stained with anti-M2 Abs (3.3 µg/ml) at room temperature for 1 h, with tetramethylrhodamine-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG Abs (diluted 1:1,000) at room temperature for 30 min, and with 0.5 mg/ml of DAPI.
(vi) Dynasore blocking experiments. HeLa cells were preincubated with 0.8% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) or dynasore (40 µM or 80 µM) in serum-free DMEM at 37°C for 30 min and then directly cooled to 4°C and infected with vaccinia IMV (MOI of 40) at 4°C for 1 h. Cells were washed with cold PBS to remove free virions and further incubated at 37°C for 2 h before fixation for virus penetration assays as described above. The drug was present in the medium throughout the experiments. Alternatively, HeLa cells were treated with dynasore as described above and then pulsed with transferrin for a further 30 min before fixation for confocal microscopy and quantification using MetaMorph Offline, version 6.1 (Molecular Devices, CA).
Knockdown of endogenous VPEF expression using siRNA. The control cyclophilin B (CypB) small interfering RNA (siRNA) duplex and the two VPEF siRNA duplexes, 3-378 (AAGUAGAUCUCAUUCCUAAUU) and 1-525 (CAAAGGAUCUAUACAUUGAUU), which, respectively, target the 378 to 398 and 525 to 545 regions of human KIAA0592 RNA, were purchased from Dharmacon Inc. HeLa cells were transfected with siRNA duplexes (50 pM) using Lipofectamine 2000 (Invitrogen), the process was repeated, and then the cells were used for virus binding and penetration assays as described above.
Nucleotide sequence accession number. The VPEF gene ORF was submitted to the NCBI under accession number AAK 53434.
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Due to the limitations of live-cell imaging, we were unable to follow individual viral particles after they reached the cell body. EM analyses showed that viruses which had reached the cell body were more associated with filopodium-rich surfaces than with smooth surfaces and were surrounded by filopodia (see Fig. S2A in the supplemental material). Interestingly, unlike Locker et al. (37), who reported no evidence of IMVs in endocytic vesicles, we observed single or multiple IMV particles that were enveloped by the intracellular vesicular membrane during viral infection (Fig. 1D), and the number of these vesicles increased steadily over the first 30 min of virus infection (Fig. 1E), suggesting endocytosis of IMVs by HeLa cells. Indeed, we found that viral core exposure was significantly inhibited in HeLa cells treated with bafilomycin (BFLA) (Fig. 1F), which blocks the endocytic route previously reported for virus entry into BSC-1 cells (58). We also used a mutant vaccinia virus in which expression of a component of the viral fusion complex, G3, was under IPTG regulation; mutant G3– vaccinia viruses prepared from cells without IPTG induction produce IMVs that bind to cells, but the fusion step is blocked (31). In EM analyses, G3– mutant virions accumulated within the cytoplasmic vesicles, suggesting that endocytic vesicles containing IMVs were already present in cells prior to the membrane fusion step (see Fig. S2B in the supplemental material). Taken together, our results show that vaccinia IMV was able to enter HeLa cells through an endocytic pathway, although we did not exclude plasma membrane fusion, as previously reported (37).
Vaccinia IMV infection of HeLa cells is not mediated by clathrin-coated pits or caveolae.
To define which endocytic machinery was used for vaccinia IMV entry, we obtained several dominant-negative (DN) mutant gene constructs known to specifically block different cellular endocytic pathways and tested their ability to block vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells. A dynamin 1 K44A DN mutant (DN-Dyn1) unable to bind GTP has been shown to inhibit the function of both endogenous dynamin 1 and dynamin 2 isoforms and to block major endocytic pathways, including clathrin- or caveola-mediated endocytosis, and even fluid phase endocytosis (7, 17, 18, 21, 40, 42, 60). In addition, a K44A mutant dynamin 2 (DN-Dyn2), the isoform that is ubiquitously expressed in nonneuronal cells, was included (15, 54). The more specific DN mutant Eps15 construct (Eps15
95/295 [DN-Eps15]), which blocks only clathrin-mediated endocytosis (6), and a DN caveolin construct (Cav1
1-81 [DN-Cav1]), which blocks caveola-mediated endocytosis (47), were also included. HeLa cells were transfected with each of these constructs and subsequently infected with vaccinia IMV as described in Materials and Methods; then the cells were fixed, permeabilized, and stained for the presence of intracellular core A4 protein after virus penetration, as described previously (61, 62). Ectopic expression of GFP-fused DN-Dyn1, but not of GFP-fused WT-Dyn1 or DN-Dyn2 or of GFP alone, blocked vaccinia IMV entry by
70% (Fig. 2A; data are quantified in Fig. 2G). In control experiments, both GFP-fused DN-Dyn1 and DN-Dyn2 effectively blocked uptake of transferrin into HeLa cells (Fig. 2B), showing an isoform-related variation in blockade of IMV entry but not of the coat-mediated endocytosis pathway. To directly inhibit the GTPase activity of endogenous dynamin in HeLa cells, we then treated cells with 40 and 80 µM concentrations of a cell-permeating inhibitor of dynamin, dynasore, that has been shown to specifically interfere with endocytic functions that depend on dynamin without affecting dynamin-independent functions (38). Dynasore blocked transferrin uptake as expected and, more importantly, blocked vaccinia IMV penetration (Fig. 2C). We also knocked down endogenous dynamin 2 expression in HeLa cells using a siRNA approach, and virus penetration was blocked (Fig. 2D). We thus concluded that vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells is dynamin dependent. Furthermore, expression of the GFP-fused Eps15
95/295 or Cav1
1-81 construct had little effect on the amount of uncoated intracellular A4 core protein (Fig. 2E; data are quantified in Fig. 2G), showing that vaccinia IMV does not utilize a clathrin- or caveolin-dependent endocytic pathway. In control experiments, DN-Eps15 and DN-Cav1 readily blocked uptake of transferrin and CTB, respectively, into HeLa cells (Fig. 2F). These results show that vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells does not rely on the formation of clathrin-coated pits or caveolae. Instead, IMV has evolved a different strategy for internalization into HeLa cells through an actin- and dynamin-dependent process. Although we could call it "dynamin-dependent macropinocytosis," we feel that "fluid phase endocytosis," as described by Cao et al. (7), fits better to our observation, so we decided to use the latter term. Although fluid phase endocytosis is consistent with active cellular protrusions recruiting viruses observed in our imaging analyses, more data are required to sustain this conclusion.
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FIG. 2. (A and B) Vaccinia IMV penetration does not require clathrin- or caveola-mediated pathways. HeLa cells were transfected with individual plasmids encoding GFP, GFP-fused WT-Dyn1, DN-Dyn1, or DN-Dyn2, infected with vaccinia virus, fixed, permeabilized, and stained with anticore (anti-A4L) Abs and DAPI. Images were obtained using a Zeiss LSM510 Meta confocal laser scanning microscope. Green and white lines delineate the edges of GFP-expressing or -nonexpressing cells, respectively. (B) Transferrin uptake was blocked by DN-Dyn1 and DN-Dyn2 proteins. HeLa cells were transfected with individual plasmids as described for panel A and assayed for transferrin uptake using confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Green and white lines were used to delineate the edges of GFP-expressing or -nonexpressing cells, respectively. (C) Dynasore inhibited both vaccinia virus penetration and transferrin uptake. HeLa cells were either mock-treated with DMSO or treated with Dynasore (40 µM or 80 µM) for 30 min and subsequently infected with vaccinia IMV at 37°C. The penetration efficiency of vaccinia virus in dynasore-treated cells was reduced to 52.51% and 41.64%, respectively, of the control level. As expected, transferrin uptake was also reduced in the presence of 40 µM and 80 µM dynasore. (D) Knockdown of endogenous dynamin 2 in HeLa cells blocked vaccinia virus penetration. HeLa cells were either mock-treated (Mock) or treated with nontargeting siRNA (Si-Control) or siRNA targeting dynamin 2 (Si-Dynamin 2) (29) and infected with vaccinia IMV, and virus penetration was determined as previously described (62). The immunoblots showed that dynamin 2 protein level was reduced in the Si-Dynamin 2 knockdown cells. (E) Vaccinia IMV penetration does not require clathrin- or caveola-mediated pathways. HeLa cells were transfected with plasmids expressing GFP-fused DN-Eps15 or DN-Cav1, infected with vaccinia virus, fixed, permeabilized, and stained with anticore (anti-A4L) Abs and DAPI. (F) DN-Eps15 and DN-Cav1 blocked transferrin and CTB uptake, respectively. HeLa cells were transfected with a plasmid expressing DN-Eps15 or DN-Cav1 and assayed for transferrin or CTB uptake using confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Cells expressing the GFP-fused proteins are marked with green lines, and control cells are marked with white lines. (G) Quantification of the viral penetration of the cells in panels A and E. The A4L cores in each GFP-expressing cell were counted and normalized to the number of A4L cores in nonexpressing cells. In each group, at least 20 GFP-expressing and 20 GFP-nonexpressing cells were counted. The bars represent the standard deviations of three independent experiments. Wt, wild type.
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FIG. 3. VPEF protein colocalized with plasma membrane microdomains. (A) Immunoblot analyses of HeLa cell lysates and purified vaccinia virus virions using anti-M2 Abs or anti-H3 (an IMV envelope protein) Abs. (B) Immunoblot analyses of HeLa cells transfected with a plasmid expressing GFP or VPEF-GFP using anti-M2 Abs. Anti-GFP Ab recognized only the exogenous VPEF-GFP (arrow) in HeLa cells. (C) Ectopically expressed VPEF-GFP was present on plasma membrane microdomains. HeLa cells expressing VPEF-GFP were copatched with anti-M2 Abs (cyan) and lipid raft marker CTB (CTB-Alexa Fluor 594, red) or with nonraft marker anti-TfR Abs (red) without permeabilization. The arrows indicate lipid raft regions where VPEF-GFP colocalized with anti-M2 staining and CTB. (D) Endogenous VPEF was present on plasma membrane microdomains. HeLa cells were copatched with anti-M2 Abs (green) and CTB-Alexa Fluor 594 (red) or anti-TfR Abs (red) as described previously (13, 55). The arrows indicate lipid rafts region where VPEF-GFP colocalized with anti-M2 staining and CTB.
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We had previously demonstrated vaccinia virus clustering at plasma membrane lipid rafts during virus penetration (13). Since VPEF-GFP was also present on lipid rafts, we investigated whether VPEF-GFP protein colocalized with vaccinia IMV particles during cell entry. Immunofluorescence analyses showed that VPEF-GFP colocalized mostly with IMVs that stained positive for core protein, suggesting that these IMVs were in the process of penetration (Fig. 4A). To eliminate the possibility that the observed viral core staining was an artifact of virion rupture during cell fixation, we performed kinetic analyses of vaccinia IMV infection in VPEF-GFP-transfected HeLa cells. Cells were infected with vaccinia IMV for 60 min at 4°C and, after a wash to remove unbound virus, were incubated at 37°C for a range of time periods from 0 to 2 h and then harvested for copatching analyses with anti-vaccinia virus and anticore Abs (Fig. 4B; data are quantified in Fig. 4C) as described previously (13). Cycloheximide was added to the medium to block viral early gene expression so that the virus life cycle was arrested immediately after entry (13, 61). At 0 min, as expected, >95% of bound IMV particles were intact and stained negative for core proteins. Initially, only little colocalization between IMV and VPEF was detected (Fig. 4C, left). As virus penetration progressed at 37°C from 30 min to 2 h, less IMV remained on the cell surface and more and more viral signals indicative of penetration intermediates were detected, i.e., cells stained positive with both anti-L1 and anticore Abs (Fig. 4C, middle). Interestingly, most of these penetration intermediates were also associated with VPEF. After penetration, viral cores were no longer associated with the viral envelope (Fig. 4C, right). The majority of these uncoated cores were not colocalized with VPEF, suggesting a transient association of VPEF with IMV during virus entry and a possible role of VPEF in IMV penetration.
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FIG. 4. Transient association of IMV with VPEF during virus penetration. (A) HeLa cells expressing VPEF-GFP were infected with vaccinia IMV at 37°C for 2 h, patched with anti-L1 MAb (red), and then fixed and stained with anticore Ab (Anti-A4L, cyan). The uncoating virions associated with VPEF-GFP, anti-L1, and anticore staining are indicated by arrows. (B) Kinetic analyses of penetrating viruses associated with VPEF-GFP. HeLa cells were infected with IMV, harvested at each time point, and processed for virus penetration assays as described in Materials and Methods. The arrows show colocalization of staining. (C) Quantification of data from panel B. Fluorescent viral signals from all the z sections (1-µm thickness) of single cells for a total of 20 cells at each time point were counted. Viral signals were classified in this study as follows. The L1-only signals represent intact bound IMV. The L1 plus core signals represent viral penetration intermediates. The core-only signals represent intracellular viral cores after penetration. The white bars represent viral signals colocalized with VPEF, and the black bars represent viral signals not colocalized with VPEF.
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FIG. 5. VPEF protein is important for vaccinia IMV penetration into HeLa cells. (A) Soluble VPEF protein blocked vaccinia IMV penetration into HeLa cells. Purified IMVs (VV) were preincubated at 4°C for 60 min with heparin (HP) (100 µg/ml), control GST (200 µg/ml), or GST-VPEF (50, 100, or 200 µg/ml) and then were used to infect HeLa cells at 4°C for virion binding or at 37°C for virus penetration analysis. Data were obtained from 40 cells at each concentration of the GST proteins used, and experiments were repeated three times. (B) Anti-M2 Abs blocked vaccinia IMV penetration into HeLa cells. HeLa cells were pretreated with anti-M2 Abs or control anti-TfR Abs, washed, and analyzed for virion binding or penetration. (C) Immunoblots of HeLa lysates prepared from knockdown cells transfected with CypB siRNA, a VPEF siRNA mixture (mix), or individual VPEF siRNAs (3-378 or 1-525) and incubated with Abs against VPEF, cyclophilin B, or control β-actin. (D) Quantification of virion binding and penetration assays of knockdown cells.
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VPEF participates in intracellular transport of dextran in fluid phase endocytosis. Our above results suggested that IMV penetration into HeLa cells may operate through a fluid phase endocytic pathway and that VPEF is important for cellular penetration by IMV. Furthermore, the intracellular distribution of endogenous VPEF was reminiscent of that of intracellular vesicles, suggesting that VPEF may be part of the system for vesicle transport between the cell surface and intracellular organelles. Could it be that the vaccinia IMV somehow recruits and/or diverts a cellular vesicle protein for its own benefit? We hypothesized that the cellular function of VPEF is involved in the uptake or transport of certain physiological ligands. To test this, we incubated HeLa cells with either fluorescence-labeled transferrin or dextran. Transferrin undergoes clathrin-mediated endocytosis, whereas dextran is taken up by fluid phase endocytosis (7, 64). Each of these fluorescent ligands was added to HeLa cells, which were then fixed, permeabilized, and stained with anti-M2 Abs. Transferrin showed little colocalization with VPEF, whereas dextran exhibited clear colocalization with intracellular VPEF (Fig. 6A) 40 min after addition. Four hours later, when the dextran had been chased into late endosomes/lysosomes, no colocalization between dextran and VPEF was observed (Fig. 6B), suggesting that dextran was transported in VPEF-containing vesicles during the early phase after being taken up into HeLa cells. Most importantly, when VPEF expression was knocked down using siRNA, dextran transport in cells was affected, showing a more restricted pattern close to the perinuclear areas (Fig. 6C), suggesting again that VPEF plays a role in the regulation of the fluid phase endocytic pathway in HeLa cells.
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FIG. 6. VPEF mediates fluid phase endocytosis. (A) Intracellular VPEF colocalized with internalized dextran but not with transferrin. HeLa cells were incubated with fluorescence-labeled transferrin or dextran at 37°C as described in Materials and Methods, fixed, permeabilized, and stained for endogenous VPEF. The insets in the panels show enlarged views of the areas outlined by the white squares. (B) No colocalization of VPEF with dextran when the latter was transported to lysosomes. HeLa cells were pulsed for 40 min with fluorescence-conjugated dextran and chased for 4 h at 37°C. The fluorescence-conjugated dextran became segregated from VPEF (left) and moved to the late endosome compartments, which were stained by anti-Lamp1 (lysosomal marker) Abs (right). (C) Knockdown of VPEF expression interrupted dextran uptake in HeLa cells. HeLa cells were mock-transfected (mock) or transfected with control siRNA (Si control), CypB siRNA (Si CypB), or VPEF 3-378 siRNA (Si VPEF) as described above, incubated with fluorescence-labeled dextran for 1 h at 37°C, washed, and then fixed for confocal microscopy analyses.
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FIG. 7. No colocalization of intracellular VPEF with the Rab5a-containing early endosome compartments (A) or caveolin-1-containing caveosomes (B) in HeLa cells. The small insets in panel A show good colocalization of Rab5a with EEA1, an early endosome marker. (C) Intracellular VPEF partially colocalized with the Rab11-containing recycling endosome compartment in HeLa cells. EGFP, enhanced GFP.
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FIG. 8. No colocalization of dynamin with VPEF in HeLa cells. HeLa cells were transfected with GFP-fused WT-Dyn1, WT-Dyn2, DN-Dyn-1, or DN-Dyn2, permeabilized, and stained with anti-M2 Abs.
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Because vaccinia virus attachment to cells at 4°C was relatively inefficient and only 1 to 2% of the input viral particles bound to cells after a 60-min incubation (37), we had to use relatively high-MOI (MOI = 40 to 100) infections in the EM and confocal analyses. Using viral early gene expression assays, we observed that vaccinia IMV entry into HeLa cells remained sensitive to BFLA in low-MOI (MOI = 0.1 to 5) infections, supporting the idea that MOI per se did not dictate the cell entry pathways employed by viruses. It is also worth noting that endocytosis of the WR strain of vaccinia IMV into HeLa cells, as described here, is not simply an artifact of high-MOI infections since infections of cells with the IHD-J strain of vaccinia IMV at a high MOI of 200 to 300 did not result in obvious endocytosis into BSC-1 (58) and HeLa cells (37).
In summary, these results demonstrate that vaccinia IMV is able to pirate cellular actin to get closer to cell bodies and manages to enter cells by hijacking a ubiquitous VPEF-dependent fluid transport pathway that is part of these cells' normal repertoire. We hypothesize that VPEF represents a new cargo or component of the earliest acceptor compartment of the clathrin- and caveolin-independent vesicle trafficking system (41) for the uptake of bulk phase fluid. The verification of this hypothesis will require further study.
This work was supported by grants from the Academia Sinica and the National Science Council (NSC96-2627-M-001-004), Taiwan.
Published ahead of print on 11 June 2008. ![]()
Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jvi.asm.org/. ![]()
Present address: Hsinchu Science Park, Jhunan, Miaoli County, Taiwan, Republic of China. ![]()
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