The R3 region, one of three major repetitive regions of human herpesvirus 6, is a strong enhancer of immediate-early gene U95

An immediate-early (IE) gene of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6), U95, has simil arity at the amino acid level to the murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) IE2 gene and is related to the human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) US22 gene family. Seque nce analyses of U95 cDNA clones revealed that the transcription start site was located about 1.6 kbp upstream of the putative initiating ATG and that the transcript consisted of two exons. A single intron extended from nucleo tides 142589 to 144229, which contained ORF U94. A protein with a molecular mass of about 120 kDa was translated from this cDNA clone in an in vitro t ranscription-translation assay. The transcription start site was found to b e 220 bp downstream of the R3 region by primer extension analysis. HHV-6 ha s three repetitive elements, R1, R2, and R3, in or near the IE-A locus. R3 is composed of 24 copies of a 104- to 107-bp sequence element, which contai ns multiple putative binding sites for cellular transcription factors such as AP2 and NF-kappaB, and its biological significance has yet to be elucida ted. The region between -710 and +46 relative to the transcription start si te of U95 was analyzed in this study. Deletion from -710 to -396, correspon ding to three copies of an R3 unit, decreased the promoter activity by 15-f old, and coexpression of I kappaB alpha (S32A/S36A) repressed it to almost the same level. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays showed that NF-kappaB family members p50 and c-Rel bound to NF-kappaB sites derived from the R3 region. These results demonstrate that R3 strongly enhances the U95 promote r activity and that NF-kappaB and binding sites for NF-kappaB in the R3 reg ion play an important role in its activation. Because U95 promoter activity correlated with the number of R3 units, which each contained an NF-kappaB site, the repetitive organization of R3 is important for regulating U95 tra nscription.