Transcription and regulation of hepatitis B virus genes in host sperm cells

Abstract

To investigate whether transcription of hepatitis B virus (HBV) gene occurs in human sperm, total RNA was extracted from sperm of patients with chronic HBV infection (test-1), from donor sperm transfected with a plasmid containing the full-length HBV genome (test-2), and from nontransfected donor sperm (control), used as the template for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Positive bands for HBV DNA were observed in the test groups but not in the control. Next, to identify the role of host genes in regulating viral gene transcription in sperm, total RNA was extracted from 2-cell embryos derived from hamster oocytes fertilized in vitro by HBV-transfected (test) or nontransfected (control) human sperm and successively subjected to SMART-PCR, suppression subtractive hybridization, T/A cloning, bacterial amplification, microarray hybridization, sequencing and the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST) search to isolate differentially expressed genes. Twenty-nine sequences showing significant identity to five human gene families were identified, with chorionic somatomammotropin hormone 2 (CSH2), eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4 gamma 2 (EIF4G2), pterin-4 alpha-carbinolamine dehydratase 2 (PCBD2), pregnancy-specific beta-1-glycoprotein 4 (PSG4) and titin (TTN) selected to represent target genes. Using real-time quantitative RT-PCR (qRT-PCR), when CSH2 and PCBD2 (or EIF4G2, PSG4 and TTN) were silenced by RNA interference, transcriptional levels of HBV s and x genes significantly decreased (or increased) (P < 0.05). Silencing of a control gene in sperm did not significantly change transcription of HBV s and x genes (P > 0.05). This study provides the first experimental evidence that transcription of HBV genes occurs in human sperm and is regulated by host genes.

Hepatitis B virus surface protein induces oxidative stress by increasing peroxides and inhibiting antioxidant defences in human spermatozoa

“…In addition, sperm transcripts are substrates for sperm protein production (Gur and Breitbart 2006;Zhao et al 2009). Recently, HBV gene transcription was confirmed in human spermatozoa and cytosine-phosphorousguanine (CpG) methylation participates in the regulation of HBV gene expression in both host spermatozoa and spermderived embryos (Zhong et al 2017(Zhong et al , 2018. A large-scale investigation of the human sperm proteome has revealed many signalling pathways, including oxidative phosphorylation and oxidative stress pathways (Wang et al 2013).…”

Transcriptom analysis revealed regulation of dexamethasone induced microRNAs in chicken thymus

“…Moreover, novel‐350, a new and differentially expressed miRNA in this study, had also a negative correlation with PCBD2 certified by qRT‐PCR. PCBD2 regulated the dimerization of homeodomain protein HNF‐1‐alpha and enhances its transcriptional activity, affected transcription of hepatitis B virus (HBV) s and x genes . Their true targeted relationships in chicken would be verified on cellular level in our further research.…”

“…PCBD2 regulated the dimerization of homeodomain protein HNF-1-alpha and enhances its transcriptional activity, affected transcription of hepatitis B virus (HBV) s and x genes. 40 Their true targeted relationships in chicken would be verified on cellular level in our further research.…”

男性生殖系统：病毒的储存库与性传播

“…HCV 通常伴随着高病毒血症，支持血行扩散来源假说 [160] 。另外，在血液中检 查不到病毒的情况下，精液中仍可以发现 HIV、ZIKV 和 EBOV 颗粒，说明这 些病毒也可感染 MRS，并脱落到精液 [161,162] 。已有证据表明，ZIKV 能够感染 小鼠 MRS，包括睾丸、附睾、精囊和前列腺 [74] 。由于 ZIKV 能够感染不同物种 的多种细胞，因此很有可能感染人类 MRS。最近证实，感染猴免疫缺陷病毒 (simian immunodeficiency virus, SIV)后的猕猴精液中的病毒来源于精囊、输 精管和附睾 [163] 。此外，超过 50%的 HIV 男性感染者，在血液和精液中检测到 的病毒表型不完全相同，说明精液中的病毒可能同时来源于血液及 MRS [162] 。 一些感染者的精液中存在携带 ZIKV、HIV 和 HBV 的生精细胞和精子，表明病 毒可能来源于睾丸或附睾 [42,130,164] 。在输精管结扎男性的精液中检测到 ZIKV， 说明病毒也可能来源于 MRS 的下游器官，包括精囊、前列腺和尿道 [165,166] 。 HPV 和 HSV 可以感染 MRS 的大多数器官，在阴茎上皮和粘膜细胞也存在较多 的病毒载量 [108,167] ，而且 HPV 和 HSV 可以进入精子 [150] ，因此精液中的 HPV 和 HSV 可来自 MRS 的多个器官。MPXV 广泛分布于多个器官，在皮肤、阴茎、 肛门损伤处、精液、血清、血浆、粪便和鼻咽部的样本中均检查到 MPXV DNA [98] ，表明许多器官都可能成为 MPXV 的来源。…”