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. 2010 Jun 6;25(3):158–167. doi: 10.1007/s12250-010-3118-0

Analysis of the cellular localization of herpes simplex virus 1 immediate-early protein ICP22

Wei Cun 1, Jie Chen 1, Ying Zhang 1, Long-ding Liu 1, Qi-han Li 1,✉
PMCID: PMC8227922  PMID: 20960289

Abstract

Nuclear proteins often form punctiform structures, but the precise mechanism for this process is unknown. As a preliminary study, we investigated the aggregation of an HSV-1 immediate-early protein, infected-cell protein 22 (ICP22), in the nucleus by observing the localization of ICP22-EGFP fusion protein. Results showed that, in high-level expression conditions, ICP22-EGFP gradually concentrates in the nucleus, persists throughout the cell cycle without disaggregation even in the cell division phase, and is finally distributed to daughter cells. We subsequently constructed a mammalian cell expression system, which had tetracycline-dependent transcriptional regulators. Consequently, the location of ICP22-EGFP in the nucleus changed with distinct induction conditions. This suggests that the cellular location of ICP22 is also influenced by promoter regulation, in addition to its own structure. Our findings provide new clues for the investigation of transcriptional regulation of viral genes. In addition, the non-protease reporter system we constructed could be utilized to evaluate the role of internal ribosome entry sites (IRES) on transcriptional regulation.

Key words: Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1), ICP22, Transcriptional regulation, Cellular localization, Nuclear functional domain

Footnotes

Foundation items: The National Natural Science Foundation of China (30670094, 30700028) and the Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (2006-0023008)

Equal contribution author.

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