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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 281, Issue 38, 27674-27678, September 22, 2006
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From the Molecular Virology Section, Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, NIAID, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-0460
Received for publication, March 22, 2006 , and in revised form, August 3, 2006.
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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The RNAi machinery also processes structured dsRNA hairpins into microRNAs (miRNAs), another class of small RNAs that modulate gene expression (6). miRNAs are derived from transcription of large highly structured precursors (pri-miRNA) of
70 nucleotides encoded by cellular genes. A primiRNA is processed in the nucleus of the cell into an imperfect shorter stem-loop structure (pre-miRNA) by Microprocessor, a large complex that includes Drosha and the RNA-binding protein DGCR8. Pre-miRNA is subsequently exported by Exportin 5 into the cytoplasm where it is additionally processed to maturity by Dicer. Similar to siRNA, one strand of the mature miRNA is then ferried by TRBP-Dicer to RISC to serve as a guide template. However, miRNA-armed RISC silences complementary mRNAs not by degradation but by virtue of being shunted into a ribosome-free cytoplasmic compartment called P-body (for "processing body") (7, 8). Hence, miRNAs primarily trigger translational repression, while siRNAs induce mRNA degradation (6).
While the complete protein composition of RISC still remains to be fully elucidated (9), in the preceding year, human TRBP protein has emerged as a newly discovered protein partner of Dicer and a contributory component (with Dicer, Ago2, and siRNA) (1012) to RISC (5). The importance of TRBP to Dicer-RISC activities was revealed by findings that intracellular depletion of TRBP led to a loss in the RNA silencing function of the cell (5). As yet, the exact details of how loss of TRBP leads to suppression of RNAi remain incompletely understood and somewhat contested (13, 14); however, consistent with TRBP's the currently inferred physiological role of TRBP in the defense against foreign nucleic acids of the cell, this protein was first cloned and identified by us based on its avid binding to a small HIV-1 hairpin RNA, TAR (15). TAR is the trans-activation-responsive RNA sequence (15), which is located in the R region of the HIV-1 LTR and is present twice (once at the 5' end and another time at the 3' end) in all HIV-1 transcripts. TAR forms a stem-bulge-loop RNA structure (16), which is required for recognition by the HIV-1 Tat protein and cellular factor P-TEFb in order for viral transcription to occur efficiently (17, 18).
In principle, the interferon (IFN)-protein kinase R (PKR) network and RNAi constitute two formidable defenses in mammalian cells against viral nucleic acids. Curiously, in practice, most viruses replicate well, once they have gained entry into mammalian cells. This empiricism suggests that viruses may likely have evolved ways to solve the restrictions imposed by RNAi and IFN-PKR. Indeed, the literature contains many examples of viral means employed to neutralize IFN-PKR. These include vaccinia virus E3L protein binding to dsRNAs making them unavailable for PKR activation (19), HCV envelope protein 2 (E2), and nonstructural 5A (NS5A)-mediated direct suppression of the kinase activity of PKR (20) and HIV TAR- (21) and Tat- (22) based attenuation of PKR function. Perhaps not unexpected, there is now increasing evidence that plant and animal viruses can also manipulate the RNAi defense of the cell (2, 6, 23). Toward the latter goal, viruses can mutate both their primary nucleic acid sequences and secondary RNA structures to evade complementarity-based targeting (24); and many viruses also encode suppressor factors (2530) that interfere with discrete steps in the RNA silencing machinery of the cell.
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| EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURES |
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-galactosidase (Clontech), and TAR (15). pcDNA-Dicer-myc vector was from Dr. Patrick Provost (31). Luciferase activity and GFP fluorimetry were measured 48 h after transfection (29). In vitro Dicer Assay293T cells were transfected with pcDNA-Dicer-myc with or without RNA using Lipofectamine 2000. 48 h later, cells were lysed (50 mM Hepes, pH 7.3, 50 mM NaCl, 1 mM EDTA, 0.4% Nonidet P-40) and incubated with anti-myc beads (Sigma) (31). 1 µg of 700-bp [32P]UTP dsRNA was incubated for 4 h with immunoprecipitated Dicer-myc. The RNA products were purified and analyzed on a 15% native polyacrylamide gel.
Quantitative Real-time RT-PCRSmall RNAs (<200 bp) were isolated using mirVana miRNA kit (Ambion). miRNA quantitation was as described previously (32, 33). RNA was polyadenylated with ATP by poly(A) polymerase at 37 °C for 1 h using the RNA tailing kit (Ambion) and reverse transcribed using 0.5 µg of poly(T) adapter primer (Invitrogen). For each PCR, equal amounts of cDNA (first normalized using the snU6 RNA) were mixed with SYBR Green PCR mix (Applied Biosystems) and 5 pmol of forward primer (designed on the entire tested miRNA sequence) and reverse primer (based on the adapter sequence). Amplification was for 15 s at 95 °C and 1 min at 60 °C for 55 cycles in an Opticon real-time PCR detection system (Bio-Rad) (32).
| RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
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To test the above, we assessed the effect of increased TAR RNA on TRBP-dependent activity. To model the situation seen in an HIV-infected cell, we transcribed in vitro wild type TAR RNA (wtTAR) and a control mutant (mutTAR) RNA with a disrupted duplexed-hairpin (Fig. 1A). The transcribed RNAs were purified and transfected into cells. To verify that transfected RNAs functioned inside the cell, we first assayed them for the well described ability of TAR to decoy Tat from its transactivation of the HIV-1 LTR (Fig. 1B). Using a HeLa cell line stably integrated with an HIV-LTR-luciferase reporter, which was transiently transfected with a Tat-plasmid, the level of luciferase was measured. We found that Tat transactivation of the LTR reporter was reduced in a dose-dependent manner (up to 60%) by the provision of transfected TAR RNA in trans. As control, mutTAR RNA, which was engineered to be incapable of forming a stable stem-bulge-loop hairpin, did not reduce the transactivation of the LTR-luciferase reporter of Tat. These results support that transfected TAR RNA is intact and functionally active inside cells. We also checked that the amounts of TAR RNA that we transfected into cells are approximate to the level of viral RNAs expressed from an integrated HIV-1 provirus. In Fig. 1C, we demonstrated by Northern blotting that the intracellular level of transfected TAR RNA is in the same range of expression as HIV-1 RNAs transcribed from an intact latent proviral genome in the ACH2 cell line (34) after induction with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate.
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TAR Interferes with Intracellular Luc- and GFP-shRNA ActivityWe next asked if the ability to reduce in vitro Dicer activity correlated with a capacity to lower intracellular RNA silencing function. To address this point, two previously characterized reporter systems were used to evaluate the effect of TAR RNA on RNAi function. We employed the pGL2 luciferase (Luc-shRNA (short hairpin RNA)) (Fig. 3A) and the CMV GFP (GFP-shRNA) (Fig. 3C) assays (29). When co-expressed, Luc-shRNA inhibited luciferase (luc) mRNA expressed from the pGL2 plasmid by 83%. Intriguingly, when wtTAR was titrated into cells, the ability of Luc-shRNA to silence Luc-mRNA was blunted. Hence, when we introduced 500 ng of wtTAR into cells, the silencing effect of Luc-shRNA dropped from 83 to 44% (Fig. 3A, middle bars). This reduction is specific to wtTAR since the sequence altered TAR mutant did not perturb the silencing activity of Luc-shRNA (Fig. 3A, +mutant TAR lanes).
The effect of TAR on the silencing function of Luc-shRNA might be explained by the sequestration of the former of the limiting amount of TRBP of the cell. If such were to occur, we reasoned that TRBP-dependent Dicer-RISC function should be affected. To verify this reasoning, we transfected increasing amounts of TRBP-plasmid into wtTAR+ Luc-shRNA cells. Interestingly, whereas wtTAR suppressed the action of Luc-shRNA, we found that the ability of Luc-shRNA to silence Luc-mRNA became progressively restored with increasing doses of transfected TRBP (Fig. 3B). Since TRBP has no effect on the transcription from the SV40 promoter in pGL2 (data not shown), these results support the interpretation that exogenous TRBP complemented the function lost due to endogenous TRBP being sequestered by TAR.
We next checked the pGL2 luciferase (Luc-shRNA) findings using the CMV EGFP (EGFP-shRNA) pairing. We found that EGFP-shRNA effectively inhibited EGFP fluorescence up to 79% as observed by microscopy and quantified by fluorimetry (Fig. 3C). Here, wtTAR RNA (Fig. 3C, panels 3 and 4), but not mutant TAR RNA (Fig. 3C, panel 7), when co-expressed led to a 3-fold reduction in the silencing activity of EGFP-shRNA. Co-transfection of exogenous TRBP countermanded the RNAi suppressive activity of wtTAR RNA (compare Fig. 3C, panel 3 versus panel 5, and panel 4 versus panel 6), but transfected TRBP in the context of mutTAR RNA did not affect the activity of EGFP-shRNA (Fig. 3C, panel 8). As additional controls, neither TAR alone nor TRBP alone significantly affected EGFP fluorescence (Fig. 3C, panels 9 and 10). Collectively, the luciferase and EGFP findings are consistent with TAR RNA targeting TRBP to interfere with the RNAi of the cell.
TAR Affects Cellular miRNA ExpressionHIV-1 encodes a viral RNA-binding protein, Tat, which partially suppresses the Dicer function of the cell (29). The above reporter assays (Figs. 1 and 3) suggest that HIV-1 may additionally use a viral RNA, TAR, to target TRBP. Because reporter assays may occasionally yield unrepresentative findings, we wished to employ a more physiological readout to assess the consequence of TAR-TRBP interaction. In this regard, in addition to processing artificially constructed shRNA, TRBP-Dicer is involved in authentic processing of the miRNAs of the cell. Hence, we asked whether TAR has an effect on TRBP-Dicer function when assessed in the context of the miRNA maturation of the cell.
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For survival, viruses apparently have evolved varied and complex stratagems to neutralize the RNAi-antiviral defense of the cell (26, 29). Previously, it was described that viruses can escape base pair complementarity-mediated attack through mutations in viral genomes, which alter primary sequences and secondary structures (24, 36, 37). Additionally, viruses can also encode proteins that interfere negatively with various steps of the si/miRNA processing machinery of the cell (2). Here we provide the first evidence that HIV-1 could use an abundantly expressed RNA to attenuate antiviral RNAi by targeting TRBP, a key component of Dicer-RISC complexes. It makes sense that HIV-1 might use TAR, since this RNA sequence is found in all viral transcripts, twice. However, we should point out that our current study employed tranfected TAR RNA, and the true biological role of virally transcribed TAR in the miRNA pathway in HIV-1 infected cells requires further study. We anticipate that with further investigation many other viruses may also be found to use decoy RNAs to quell the RNAi defenses of the cell. Indeed, the adenovirus RNA polymerase III transcribed VA RNA has been proposed to quench Dicer function through binding (30), (38). Unlike TAR, VA acts not via TRBP but by direct contact to Dicer (30).
We note with interest that PACT, a human dsRNA-binding protein related to TRBP, has been identified recently to provide a si/miRNA processing function partially redundant to TRBP (39). Because PACT and TRBP conserve RNA-binding domains, in principle, excess TAR RNA can also sequester PACT and inhibit PACT activity. Because a part of PACT activity is divergent from TRBP activity in si/miRNA processing, this fact may explain why exogenous complementation of TRBP only partially restored wtTAR RNA-mediated suppression of Luc- and GFP-shRNA interference activity (Fig. 3). Our current understanding of Tat, TAR, VA, TRBP, PACT, and Dicer leaves unresolved many details about how small viral dsRNAs, viral dsRNA-binding proteins (40), and cellular dsRNA-binding proteins interact either cooperatively (41) or antagonistically (6, 2729, 42) in si/miRNA pathways. Nevertheless, an emerging view is that viruses can use both viral proteins and RNAs to combat the RNAi defense of the cell.
| FOOTNOTES |
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1 To whom correspondence should be addressed: Molecular Virology Section, Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, NIAID, National Institutes of Health, Bldg. 4, Rm. 306, 9000 Rockville Pike, Bethesda, MD 20892-0460. Tel.: 301-496-6680; Fax: 301-480-3686; E-mail: kj7e{at}nih.gov.
2 The abbreviations used are: RNAi, RNA interference; dsRNA, double-stranded RNA; siRNA, small interfering RNA; TRBP, TAR RNA-binding protein; RISC, RNA-induced silencing complex; Ago2, argonaute 2; miRNA, microRNA; IFN, interferon; PKR, protein kinase R; HIV-1, human immunodeficiency virus, type 1; GFP, green fluorescent protein; EGFP, enhanced GFP; RT, reverse transcription; LTR, long terminal repeat; wt, wild type; shRNA, short hairpin RNA; CMV, cytomegalovirus. ![]()
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| REFERENCES |
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