Distinctive Effects of the Epstein-Barr Virus Family of Repeats on Viral Latent Gene Promoter Activity and B-lymphocyte Transformation

The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), a human B-lymphotropic gamma herpesvirus, contains multiple repetitive sequences within its genome. A group of repetitive sequences, known as the family of repeats (FR), contains multiple binding sites for the viral trans-acting protein EBNA-1. The FR sequences are important for viral genome maintenance and for the regulation of the promoter involved in viral latent gene expression. It has been reported that a palindromic sequence with a putative secondary structure exists at the 3' end of the FR in the genome of the EBV B95-8 strain and that this palindromic sequence has been deleted from the FR of the commonly used EBV miniplasmids. For the first time, we cloned an EBV B95-8 DNA fragment containing the full-length FR, which enabled us to examine the functional difference between full-length and deleted FRs. The full-length FR, like the deleted FR, functioned as a transcriptional enhancer of the viral latent gene promoter, but that transactivation was significantly attenuated in the case of the full-length FR. No significant enhancement of replication was observed when the deleted FR was replaced with the full-length FR in an EBV miniplasmid. By contrast, when the same set of FR sequences were tested in the context of the complete EBV genome, the full-length FR resulted in more-efficient B-cell transformation than the deleted FR. We propose that the presence of the full-length FR contributes to the precise regulation of the viral latent promoter and increases the efficiency of B-cell transformation.