Functional Studies of CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein Site Located Downstream of the Transcriptional Start Site

• Main Authors: Yujie Liu (Author), Michael R Nonnemacher (Author), Aikaterini Alexaki (Author), Vanessa Pirrone (Author), Anupam Banerjee (Author), Luna Li (Author), Evelyn Kilareski (Author), Brian Wigdahl (Author)
• Format: Book
• Published: SAGE Publishing, 2017-03-01T00:00:00Z.
• Subjects: article
• Online Access: Connect to this object online.

Summary

Previous studies have identified a CCAAT/enhancer binding protein (C/EBP) site located downstream of the transcriptional start site (DS3). The role of the DS3 element with respect to HIV-1 transactivation by Tat and viral replication has not been characterized. We have demonstrated that DS3 was a functional C/EBPβ binding site and mutation of this site to the C/EBP knockout DS3-9C variant showed lower HIV-1 long terminal repeat (LTR) transactivation by C/EBPβ. However, it was able to exhibit similar or even higher transcription levels by Tat compared to the parental LTR. C/EBPβ and Tat together further enhanced the transcription level of the parental LAI-LTR and DS3-9C LTR, with higher levels in the DS3-9C LTR. HIV molecular clone viruses carrying the DS3-9C variant LTR demonstrated a decreased replication capacity and delayed rate of replication. These results suggest that DS3 plays a role in virus transcriptional initiation and provides new insight into C/EBP regulation of HIV-1.

Item Description

1179-5557
10.1177/1179555717694556