Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein A1 interferes with the binding of the human T cell leukemia virus type 1 Rex regulatory protein to its response element

The human T cell leukemia virus, type 1 (HTLV-1), Rex protein mediates the nuclear export of unspliced and incompletely spliced viral mRNAs. This post-transcriptional activity is dependent in part on the binding of this protein to cis-regulatory sequences termed the Rex-response element (XRE). We have proposed previously that the decreased functionality exhibited by Rex in human lymphoblastoid Jurkat T cells may be linked to alterations in the Rex/XRE interactions. The analysis of the ribonucleoprotein complexes formed between Jurkat nuclear proteins and XRE-RNA led to the identification of a 36-kDa protein as heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) A1. In vitro binding assays revealed that hnRNP A1 proteins were found to interfere with the binding of Rex to XRE, whereas nuclear extracts depleted of these proteins were unable to disrupt Rex-XRE complexes. Furthermore, A1 proteins from Jurkat cells were acting in a concentration-dependent manner, suggesting that the amount of these RNA-binding proteins is a critical parameter in controlling Rex activity. We indeed observed a lower level of hnRNP A1 in in vitro HTLV-1-transformed virus-producing T cells than that detected in Jurkat cells. Likewise, overexpression of hnRNP A1 proteins in 293T cells and in Jurkat cells led to a decrease in the expression of a reporter gene dependent on Rex/XRE interactions. Such a decrease was not observed when the expression of the same reporter gene by cells overexpressing hnRNP A1 was dependent on the interactions of human immunodeficiency virus Rev protein with the Rev-response element. These findings indicate that hnRNP A1 by competing with Rex for the formation of REX-XRE complexes is specifically involved in the modulation of the post-transcriptional activity of Rex.