DIFFERENTIAL-EFFECTS OF THE SPLICE ACCEPTOR AT NUCLEOTIDE-3295 OF HUMAN-PAPILLOMAVIRUS TYPE-31 ON STABLE AND TRANSIENT VIRAL REPLICATION

In human papillomavirus type 31 (HPV-31), the E1 boolean AND E4 and E5 open reading frames are expressed from polycistronic mRNAs. The major polycistronic mRNAs which encode E1 boolean AND E4 and E5 are spliced messages which utilize a splice acceptor at nucleotide (nt) 3295 (SPA (3295)). Our laboratory recently developed a recombinant system for th e synthesis of HPVs following immortalization of primary keratinocytes with cloned HPV-31 genomes (M. G. Frattini et al., Proc, Natl, Acad, Sci, USA 93:3062-3067, 1996). These immortalized cell lines are capabl e of maintaining HPV-31 DNA as episomes and induce the synthesis of vi rions in organotypic raft culture, In this study, we used these method s to begin an analysis of the roles of E1 boolean AND E4 and E5 in HPV pathogenesis by mutating the major splice at nt 3295, Mutation of SPA (3295) did not significantly alter the ability of HPV-31 genomes to re plicate transiently in keratinocytes, nor did the mutation affect the immortalization potential of HPV-31. However, genomes carrying the SPA (3295) mutation were not stably maintained as viral episomes, and the resulting immortalized keratinocyte cell line contained multiple, inte grated copies of the mutated HPV-31 DNA. Northern analysis indicated t hat cell lines immortalized with the mutant HPV-31 expressed transcrip ts which were similar in size and abundance to wild-type messages, inc luding those transcripts which rely on utilization of SPA(3295). RNase protection and reverse transcription-PCR revealed that mutation of SP A(3295) resulted in the utilization of a cryptic splice acceptor at nt 3298. These data suggest that the requirements for stable maintenance of HPV genomes are more stringent than those for transient replicatio n and that factors which define these requirement rely on the major sp lice acceptor at nt 3295.