HTRP-an Immediate-early Gene Product Induced By HSV1 Infection In Human Embryo Fibroblast, Is Involved In Cellular Co-repressors

During the different phases of viral infection, virus interacts with various components of host cells in different ways. In this case, such interactions between virus and cell occur at multi-level, which can determine the fate of infected cells. The interaction between virus and receptor in membrane mimics the physiological ligand binding to its specific receptor and also activates a specific signal transduction in cells. The research focusing on such interaction is critical for understanding the mechanism of viral infection and cell response. HSV is a group of double-stranded DNA virus and contains envelope components including glycoprotein that attaches to the cell surface to initiate infection. In our previous work, an immediate-early gene of cellular response against the specific stimulation of HSVl binding, encoding HTRP (human transcription regulator protein) with unclear function, was cloned from cDNA library established on the mRNA pool from KMB-17 cells at the early stage of gene response to HSVl infection. In this study, the function of HTRP protein was investigated further.To investigate the physiological expression of the htrp gene in tissues and the relation between its expression and the HSVl binding, a northern blotting was performed. The results showed that the enhanced expression of the htrp gene was specific in KMB-17 cells bound by the HSVl and unspecific in some tissues, implying the involvement of the htrp expression in an underlying physiological function in these tissues.In the preliminary research of HTRP function, the location of HTRP in KMB-17 cells and Hela cells was determined by the expression of the pEGFP-HTRP plasmid. The result showed that the HTRP expressed in KMB-17 cells and Hela cells were localized in nucleus. The flow cytometry analysis on KMB-17 cells at different time points after transfection with pcDNA3-HTRP indicated that the expression of the HTRP induced the death of cells . The result of GST pull-down demonstrated that at...