       Document 0140
 DOCN  M94A0140
 TI    Transactivation of the human interleukin-6 gene by human T-lymphotropic
       virus type 1 Tax protein.
 DT    9412
 AU    Yamashita I; Katamine S; Moriuchi R; Nakamura Y; Miyamoto T; Eguchi K;
       Nagataki S; First Department of Internal Medicine, Nagasaki University
       School; of Medicine, Japan.
 SO    Blood. 1994 Sep 1;84(5):1573-8. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE
       MED/94348082
 AB    Interleukin-6 (IL-6) is a multifunctional cytokine that regulates both
       humoral and cellular immune responses. Accumulating evidence suggests
       that the infection of T cells and other cell types with human
       T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) results in the constitutive
       expression of IL-6. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are
       little understood. When a reporter plasmid, pIL6-CAT-E3, in which the
       human IL-6 enhancer/promoter region from -630 to +14 was linked to the
       bacterial chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene, was transfected,
       HTLV-1-infected but not -uninfected T-cell lines activated the IL-6
       promoter. This indicated the presence of a factor transactivating the
       IL-6 gene in the infected cells. To evaluate the involvement of the
       HTLV-1-encoded transacting factor (Tax) in this transactivation, we
       examined the effect of transient cotransfection with the Tax-expression
       plasmid, pMAX-Neo, on the transcription from the IL-6 promoter by use of
       COS1 cells. The cotransfected COS1 has about six-times greater the CAT
       activity than that transfected with pIL6-CAT-E3 alone. The analysis of a
       series of deletions of the IL-6 promoter suggested that the region
       (-105/-47) containing a NF kappa B site was crucial for the Tax
       responsiveness. We further examined the effect of Tax on endogenous IL-6
       gene expression using the Jurkat clone, JPX-9, stably transfected with
       pMAX-Neo. JPX-9 accumulated steady state transcripts of the endogenous
       IL-6 gene in response to the induction of Tax expression. Our findings
       indicate an important role of the Tax protein in the expression of IL-6
       in cells infected with HTLV-1.
 DE    Animal  Base Sequence  Cell Line  Cercopithecus aethiops
       Chloramphenicol Acetyltransferase/BIOSYNTHESIS/GENETICS  DNA Primers
       Enhancer Elements (Genetics)  *Gene Expression  Gene Products,
       tax/BIOSYNTHESIS/*METABOLISM  Human  HTLV-I/GENETICS/*PHYSIOLOGY
       Interleukin-6/*BIOSYNTHESIS/*GENETICS  Kidney  Molecular Sequence Data
       Polymerase Chain Reaction  Promoter Regions (Genetics)  Restriction
       Mapping  RNA, Messenger/ANALYSIS/BIOSYNTHESIS  Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
       *Trans-Activation (Genetics)  Transfection  Tumor Cells, Cultured
       JOURNAL ARTICLE

       SOURCE: National Library of Medicine.  NOTICE: This material may be
       protected by Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.Code).

