Interaction of JC virus agno protein with T antigen modulates transcription and replication of the viral genome in glial cells.

In addition to encoding the structural and regulatory proteins, many viruses encode auxiliary proteins, some of which have been shown to play important roles in lytic and latent states of the viruses. The human neurotropic JC virus (JCV) genome encodes an auxiliary protein called Agno whose function remains unknown. Here, we investigated the functional role of JCV Agno protein on transcription and replication of the viral genome in glial cells. Results from transfection of human glial cells showed that Agno protein suppresses both T-antigen-mediated transcription of the viral late gene promoter and T-antigen-induced replication of viral DNA. Affinity chromatography and coimmunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that the Agno protein and T antigen physically interact with each other. Through the use of a series of deletion mutants, we demonstrated that the T-antigen-interacting region of Agno protein is localized to its amino-terminal half and the Agno-interacting domain of T antigen maps to its central portion. Furthermore, utilizing various Agno deletion mutants in functional studies, we confirmed the importance of the Agno-T antigen interaction in the observed down-modulation of T antigen function upon viral gene transcription and DNA replication by Agno protein. Taken together these data suggest that the Agno protein of JCV, which is produced late during the late phase of the lytic cycle, can physically and functionally interact with the viral early protein, T antigen, and downregulate viral gene expression and DNA replication. The importance of these observations in the lytic cycle of JCV is discussed.