Identification of unusual E6 and E7 proteins within avian papillomaviruses: Cellular localization, biophysical characterization, and phylogenetic analysis

Papillomaviruses (PVs) are a large family of small DNA viruses infecting mammals, reptiles, and birds. PV infection induces cell proliferation that may lead to the formation of orogenital or skin tumors. PV-induced cell proliferation has been related mainly to the expression of two small oncoproteins, E6 and E7. In mammalian PVs, E6 contains two 70-residue zinc-binding repeats, whereas E7 consists of a natively unfolded N-terminal region followed by a zinc-binding domain which folds as an obligate homodimer. Here, we show that both the novel francolin bird PV Francolinus leucoscepus PV type 1 (FlPV-1) and the chaffinch bird PV Fringilla coelebs PV contain unusual E6 and E7 proteins. The avian E7 proteins contain an extended unfolded N terminus and a zinc-binding domain of reduced size, whereas the avian E6 proteins consist of a single zinc-binding domain. A comparable single-domain E6 protein may have existed in a common ancestor of mammalian and avian PVs. Mammalian E6 C-terminal domains are phylogenetically related to those of single-domain avian E6, whereas mammalian E6 N-terminal domains seem to have emerged by duplication and subsequently diverged from the original ancestral domain. In avian and mammalian cells, both FlPV-1 E6 and FlPV-1 E7 were evenly expressed in the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Finally, samples of full-length FlPV-1 E6 and the FlPV-1 E7 C-terminal zinc-binding domain were prepared for biophysical analysis. Both constructs were highly soluble and well folded, according to nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy measurements.