The E1 protein is a multifunctional, origin-binding helicase that is essential for replication of papillomaviruses. Recently, bovine papillomavirus E1 was shown to be post-translationally modified by the addition of the SUMO-1 polypeptide. Here we show that the site of sumoylation maps to lysine residue 514. This lysine and the flanking sequences are well conserved in human papillomavirus (HPV) E1 proteins. Both HPV1a and HPV18 E1 proteins are substrates for sumoylation in vitro, which is consistent with this modification being a general property of E1 proteins. Mutations, which impair the sumoylation of bovine papillomavirus E1, prevent normal nuclear accumulation of E1 with a concomitant loss of replication capacity. These results suggest that sumoylation plays a role in nuclear transport and could regulate the E1 replication function by controlling access to the nuclear replication domains.
Bovine papillomavirus (BPV)1 E1 protein is the major initiator protein for viral DNA replication and thus plays a critical role in the establishment of episomal viral genomes in the host cell nucleus (1). E1 and E2 proteins are the only two viral proteins required to replicate the viral genome in vivo, whereas the rest of the replication machinery is provided by the host cell (2, 3). E1 is a DNA helicase that binds to specific sequences in the viral origin and unwinds the viral DNA for initiation of replication (4, 5). Purified E1 protein can initiate in vitro viral replication without the support of the E2 protein (6). However, the interaction of E1 with E2 protein promotes specific binding and assembly of E1 protein on the viral origin to form an active initiation complex (7,8). Additional functions of E1 include recruiting cellular replication factors, such as the DNA polymerase ␣ and replication protein A (9 -11). E1 also interacts with histone H1 (12) and SW1/SNF5 (13), suggesting that E1 plays a role in chromatin remodeling at the viral origin.Recently, we demonstrated that BPV E1 protein is posttranslationally modified by a novel process known as sumoylation (14). Sumoylation involves the covalent attachment of the small ubiquitin-related proteins (SUMO-1, -2, or -3) to target substrates (15). Sumoylation is achieved by a multistep process in a manner that is analogous to ubiquitinylation (reviewed in Ref. 16). SUMO is first activated by a heterodimeric enzyme termed Aos1/Uba2, and then the activated SUMO is covalently transferred to the SUMO-specific conjugating enzyme Ubc9 via a thioester linkage (17). Ubc9 physically interacts with various substrates and transfers SUMO to one or more lysine residues in the target protein. Unlike ubiquitinylation in which the primary function is targeting proteins for degradation, the effects of sumoylation are more substrate-specific and can result in alterations in function (18 -20), stability (21), or intracellular location (22-25) of the modified protein. For BPV E1, a mutant unable to interact with Ubc9 showed altered intranuclear distribution (14). As BPV E1 is the first kno...