In this study, structural and functional aspects of adenovirus type 5 (Ad5) E4orf3 protein were analyzed by biophysical and biochemical methods. Ad5 is one of the mostly used gene therapy vectors to date. However, some of its proteins possess oncogenic potential and their presence comprises safety risks. E4orf3 is one of the oncoproteins of Ad5. It also takes important roles in viral infection, and is beneficial for therapy vectors. Therefore, understanding the functions of E4orf3 is very important for developing efficient and safe adenovirus vectors.
Most of the present knowledge about the functions of E4orf3 comes from its mutational analysis. It has never been expressed or purified successfully due to its extreme insolubility. Therefore, this study focused on the optimization of expression of E4orf3 protein. As a result, full-length E4orf3 was obtained in soluble form as a Glutathione-S-transferase (GST) fusion protein and purified by GST affinity chromatography for the first time. Subsequently, the interaction of E4orf3 with four different proteins, DNA-PK, Aup1, E1B-55 kDa and E4orf6 was analyzed in detail by GST-pulldown technique. In these experiments, E4orf3 was shown to associate with Aup1, E1B-55 kDa and E4orf6 in vitro, and the C-terminal of E4orf3 was determined to be responsible for these interactions. Finally, basic structural information about E4orf3 protein was also obtained for the first time by the direct analysis of the fusion protein in glutathione beads with Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Since the purified E4orf3 protein could not be separated from the glutathione beads due to its hydrophobic regions, the secondary structures in this protein were determined after subtracting glutathione and H2O absorption bands, and the GST moiety.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12605415/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 August 2004 |
| Creators | Koyuncu, Emre |
| Contributors | Severcan, Feride |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | M.S. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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