title: Regulation and autoregulation of the promoter for the latency-associated nuclear antigen of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus.
abstract: Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) or human herpesvirus 8 has been established as the etiological agent of Kaposi's sarcoma and certain AIDS-associated lymphomas. KSHV establishes latent infection in these tumors, invariably expressing high levels of the viral latency-associated nuclear antigen (LANA) protein. LANA is necessary and sufficient to maintain the KSHV episome. It also modulates viral and cellular transcription and has been implicated directly in oncogenesis because of its ability to bind to the p53 and pRb tumor suppressor proteins. Previously, we identified the LANA promoter (LANAp) and showed that it was positively regulated by LANA itself. Here, we present a detailed mutational analysis and define cis-acting elements and trans-acting factors for the core LANAp. We found that a downstream promoter element, TATA box, and GC box/Sp1 site at -29 are all individually required for activity. This architecture places LANAp into the small and unusual group of eukaryotic promoters that contain both the downstream promoter element and TATA element but lack a defined initiation site. Furthermore, we demonstrate that LANA regulates its own promoter via its C-terminal domain and does bind to a defined site within the core promoter.
authors.affiliation: University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73104, USA.
authors.forename: Joseph H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Joshua
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Orvis
authors.forename: Jong Wook
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Curtis P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: McMurtrey
authors.forename: Rolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Renne
authors.forename: Dirk P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Dittmer
mesh_terms: D000956:Antigens, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; D019288:Herpesvirus 8, Human / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D011401:Promoter Regions, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D012514:Sarcoma, Kaposi / Q000821:virology; D017735:Virus Latency / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D000956:Antigens, Viral; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; C109540:latency-associated nuclear antigen