Open AccessSelective Cleavage of AAVS1 Substrates by the Adeno-Associated Virus Type 2 Rep68 Protein Is Dependent on Topological and Sequence Constraints
Author(s) -
Stefania Lamartina,
Gennaro Ciliberto,
Carlo Toniatti
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.617
H-Index - 292
eISSN - 1070-6321
pISSN - 0022-538X
DOI - 10.1128/jvi.74.19.8831-8842.2000
Subject(s) - biology , adeno associated virus , dna , cleavage (geology) , microbiology and biotechnology , endonuclease , binding site , gene , genetics , recombinant dna , paleontology , fracture (geology) , vector (molecular biology)
The adeno-associated virus type 2 (AAV-2) Rep78 and Rep68 proteins are required for replication of the virus as well as its site-specific integration into a unique site, called AAVS1, of human chromosome 19. Rep78 and Rep68 initiate replication by binding to a Rep binding site (RBS) contained in the AAV-2 inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) and then specifically nicking at a nearby site called the terminal resolution site (trs ). Similarly, Rep78 and Rep68 are postulated to trigger the integration process by binding and nicking RBS andtrs homologues present in AAVS1. However, Rep78 and Rep68 cleave in vitro AAVS1 duplex-linear substrates much less efficiently than hairpinned ITRs. In this study, we show that the AAV-2 Rep68 endonuclease activity is affected by the topology of the substrates in that it efficiently cleaves in vitro in a site- and strand-specific manner the AAVS1trs only if this sequence is in a supercoiled (SC) conformation. DNA sequence mutagenesis in the context of SC templates allowed us to elucidate for the first time the AAVS1trs sequence and position requirements for Rep68-mediated cleavage. Interestingly, Rep68 did not cleave SC templates containing RBS from other sites of the human genome. These findings have intriguing implications for AAV-2 site-specific integration in vivo.