A recombinant cottontail rabbit papillomavirus genome for ectopic expression of genes in cells infected with virus in vivo

• Published in: Journal of virological methods 2013-01, Vol.187 (1), p.110-113
• Main Authors: Probst, Sonja, Notz, Ekaterina, Wolff, Miriam, Buehlmann, Julia, Stubenrauch, Frank, Iftner, Thomas
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animals; Antisense; Codon, Initiator - genetics; Codons; Cottontail rabbit papillomavirus; Cottontail rabbit papillomavirus - genetics; CRPV; Digestion; DNA, Viral - genetics; double prime L1 protein; Gene Expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; Genome, Viral; Genomes; Insertion; Neoplasms - genetics; Neoplasms - virology; Papillomavirus Infections - genetics; Papillomavirus Infections - virology; Rabbit; Rabbits; Recombinant tumor virus; Simian virus 40; Simian virus 40 - genetics; Transcription Factors - genetics; Tumor Virus Infections - genetics; Tumor Virus Infections - virology; Tumors; Viral Proteins - genetics
• ISSN: 0166-0934; 1879-0984
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jviromet.2012.09.008

► Deletion of the L2 gene is dispensable for tumor induction by CRPV DNA in rabbits. ► The antisense insertion of a major portion of L2 does not influence the efficiency of tumor induction. ► The replacement of the L2 gene with a eukaryotic expression cassette does not change tumor induction when combined with mutation of the L1 start codon. The objective of this study was to construct a cottontail rabbit papillomavirus (CRPV) genome that would co-express a gene of choice and the viral genome simultaneously. Using this construct, the effects of the ectopic expression of diverse viral or cellular genes on PV-infected cells can be examined to elucidate which genes are essential for tumor formation. CRPV-pLAIIdelXba1, which lacks the major portion of L2 (designated the XbaI fragment), has been previously shown to fully retain the ability to induce tumors, and this ability was confirmed in this study. Insertion of the XbaI fragment in an antisense orientation did not change the efficiency of tumor induction. An SV40 overexpression cassette that originated from pSG5 and contains a more diverse multiple cloning site (MCS) was cloned into CRPV-Xba1-mcs, a CRPV genome based on CRPV-pLAIIdelXba1 that contains an additional MCS inserted via XbaI digestion. Additionally, the L1 ATG initiation codon of this construct, designated CRPV-Xba1-oe-WT, was mutated to avoid unnecessary L1 protein expression, which produced the CRPV-Xba1-oe-L1mut construct. Injection of these constructs into two New Zealand White rabbits and monitoring of tumor growth for two to six months showed that CRPV-Xba1-oe-WT induced tumors at 1/10 and 1/10 of the injection sites in two animals, while the control injections in each rabbit induced tumors at 3/10 and 4/10 injection sites, respectively. However, CRPV-Xba1-oe-L1mut induced tumors at 3/10, 6/10, 7/12 and 11/12 sites in four injected animals, and the control injections induced tumor growth in these animals at 6/10, 10/10, 12/12 and 12/12 of the injected sites, respectively. Thus, CRPV-Xba1-oe-L1mut could potentially be used to conduct overexpression experiments in vivo that can be used to measure the negative or positive influences of ectopically expressed foreign or HPV genes on tumor growth.