Progressive loss of CD3 expression after HTLV-I infection results from chromatin remodeling affecting all the CD3 genes and persists despite early viral genes silencing.

ABSTRACT:

Background

HTLV-I infected CD4+ T-cells lines usually progress towards a CD3- or CD3low phenotype. In this paper, we studied expression, kinetics, chromatin remodeling of the CD3 gene at different time-points post HTLV-I infection.

Results

The onset of this phenomenon coincided with a decrease of CD3gamma followed by the subsequent progressive reduction in CD3delta, then CD3epsilon and CD3zeta mRNA. Transient transfection experiments showed that the CD3gamma promoter was still active in CD3- HTLV-I infected cells demonstrating that adequate amounts of the required transcription factors were available. We next looked at whether epigenetic mechanisms could be responsible for this progressive decrease in CD3 expression using DNase I hypersensitivity (DHS) experiments examining

SUBMITTER: Akl H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2042505 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature