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HTLV‐1 p27rex stabilizes human interleukin‐2 receptor alpha chain mRNA.
Author(s) -
Kanamori H.,
Suzuki N.,
Siomi H.,
Nosaka T.,
Sato A.,
Sabe H.,
Hatanaka M.,
Honjo T.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
the embo journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 7.484
H-Index - 392
eISSN - 1460-2075
pISSN - 0261-4189
DOI - 10.1002/j.1460-2075.1990.tb07639.x
Subject(s) - biology , alpha chain , messenger rna , microbiology and biotechnology , alpha (finance) , virology , receptor , genetics , gene , medicine , construct validity , nursing , patient satisfaction
Expression of the pX gene products (p40tax, p27rex and p21X‐III) of human T cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV‐1), which is known to be a causative agent of adult T cell lymphoma/leukemia, induces expression of the interleukin‐2 receptor alpha chain (IL‐2R alpha) on infected T cells. Comparison of IL‐2R alpha promoter activities has revealed that the transcriptional activation of the promoter alone cannot explain the large numbers of IL‐2R alpha expressed on HTLV‐1 infected cells. We found that the rates of the IL‐2R alpha mRNA degradation were greatly reduced in pX‐positive cells as compared with pX‐negative cells. Simultaneous transfection of the expression vector plasmid containing IL‐2R alpha cDNA and similar plasmids containing various pX sequences showed that p27rex elongated the half life of IL‐2R alpha mRNA. As p27rex did not affect the transport of the IL‐2R alpha mRNA from nucleus to cytoplasm, prolongation of the IL‐2R alpha mRNA half life by p27rex is ascribed to stabilization of the mRNA. Experiments using deletion mutants and chimeric constructs of the IL‐2R alpha cDNA demonstrated that the coding sequence but not the 5′ or 3′ untranslated region of the IL‐2R alpha mRNA sequence is responsible for its protection by p27rex.