Trans-activator Tax of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 enhances mutation frequency of the cellular genome.

Tax protein of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is a potent trans-activator of specific sets of target genes, and on the other hand, it is a trans-repressor of other sets of genes. It is also an inhibitor of the tumor suppressor protein p16(INK4a) and thus has been thought to contribute to induction of adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). We examined the mutagenic effects of Tax on a cellular gene, hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyltransferase (hprt), and LacI gene in lambda shuttle vector exogenously integrated in Big Blue Rat-2 (BBRat-2) cells. Expression of Tax in BBRat-2 cells enhanced the frequency of HPRT(-) phenotype severalfold. Tax-expressing cell clones, BBTax-1 and -2 established from BBRat-2 cells, gave rise to an average mutation frequency of 5.9 x 10(-5) in LacI gene, but Tax-negative cell clones, BBRat-C1 and -C2, showed 2. 1 x 10(-5). The 2.8-fold increase in mutation frequency in the presence of Tax indicates that Tax expression enhanced mutation frequency in chromosomal DNA. However, neither the mutation spectrum of base transitions, transversions, and deletions/insertions nor the loci of the mutations were significantly affected by Tax expression. These findings indicate that Tax has the capability to induce random mutations and suggest that Tax would be able to modulate cellular phenotypes through mutation of the cellular genome. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.