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A Role for Transportin in the Nuclear Import of Adenovirus Core Proteins and DNA
Author(s) -
Hindley Clemence E.,
Lawrence Fiona J.,
Matthews David A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
traffic
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.677
H-Index - 130
eISSN - 1600-0854
pISSN - 1398-9219
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0854.2007.00618.x
Subject(s) - nuclear transport , importin , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , nuclear localization sequence , nuclear protein , nuclear export signal , cell nucleus , cytoplasm , biochemistry , gene , transcription factor
Adenoviruses target their double‐stranded DNA genome and its associated core proteins to the interphase nucleus; this core structure then enters through the nuclear pore complex. We have used digitonin permeabilized cell import assays to study the cellular import factors involved in nuclear entry of virus DNA and the core proteins, protein V and protein VII. We show that inhibition of transportin results in aberrant localization of protein V and that transportin is necessary for protein V to accumulate in the nucleolus. Furthermore, inhibition of transportin results in inhibition of protein VII and DNA import, whereas disruption of the classical importin α–importin β import pathway has little effect. We show that mature protein VII has different import preferences from the precursor protein, preVII from which it is derived by proteolytic processing. While bacterially expressed glutathione S‐transferase (GST)‐preVII primarily utilizes the pathway mediated by importin α–importin β, bacterially expressed GST‐VII favours the transportin pathway. This is significant because while preVII is important during viral replication and assembly only mature VII is available during viral DNA import to a newly infected cell. Our results implicate transportin as a key import receptor for the nuclear localization of adenovirus core.