Figure 5.
TRIM22 is an ubiquitin ligase of NS5A. (a) TRIM22 specifically degrades NS5A. 293T cells are transfected. HCV proteins are transfected together with TRIM22 and ubiquitin. Western blotting was performed 48 h after plasmid transfection. (b) Exogenous NS5A: Huh-7 cells transfected with HA-NS5A plasmid (100 ng/well in a 24-well plate) were transfected with FLAG-TRIM22 (upper left: 0, 200 and 1000 ng/well in a 24-well plate) and HIS-Ubiquitin (40 ng/well in a 24-well plate) plasmids or treated with IFNα (upper right: IFNα 0, 50 and 100 IU/ml triggered 24 h after HA-NS5A plasmid transfection). After 48 h, samples were collected for western blotting. TRIM22 degraded NS5A (100 ng/well in a 24-well plate) in a dose-dependent manner. Endogenous NS5A: Huh-7-Con-1 replicon cells were transfected with FLAG-TRIM22 (lower left: 0, 200 and 1000 ng/well in a 24-well plate) and HIS-Ubiquitin (40 ng/well in a 24-well plate) or treated with IFNα (lower right: 50 IU/ml). Samples were detected by western blotting 48 h after plasmid transfection or IFNα treatment. TRIM22 degraded endogenous NS5A (100 ng/well in a 24-well plate) in a dose-dependent manner. (c) Upper panel: FLAG-TRIM22 (1.5 µg/well, six-well plate), HA-NS5A (1.5 µg/well, six-well plate) and HIS-Ubiquitin (0.3 µg/well, six-well plate) were expressed in 293T cells. Immunoprecipitation of NS5A with anti-HA antibody and western blotting of ubiquitin with an anti-HIS antibody were performed 24 h after plasmid transfection. TRIM22 efficiently ligated ubiquitin to NS5A. Lower panel: endogenous ubiquitination of NS5A was detected. Huh-7-Con-1 replicon cells were treated with IFNα (50 IU/ml). Twenty-four hours after IFNα treatment, cells were harvested and immunoprecipitated with an anti-NS5A antibody. Then, western blotting was performed with an anti-ubiquitin antibody. (d) MG132 (20 nM) successfully blocked the endogenous ubiquitination of NS5A and NS5A degradation. HCV, hepatitis C virus; IFN, interferon; TRIM, tripartite motif.