Characterization of the promoter elements of Bombyx mori bidensovirus nonstructural gene 1

Bombyx mori Bidensovirus (BmBDV), a bipartite virus possesses two single-stranded linear DNAs (VD1 and VD2) and shows high pathogenic ability to Bombyx mori. Previous research found that the genes of nonstructural protein ns1 and ns2 were in the same transcript. To investigate the mechanism of transcriptional regulation of ns1 and ns2 genes, the 5'-flanking sequence (289 nt) of ns1 gene, encompasses the regions of the common terminal sequence (CTS) and the predicted P5 promoter from the 5'-terminus of the viral genome to the transcription initiation site of the ns1 gene was cloned and fused to the upstream of the luciferase reporter gene. The luciferase reporter assay showed that the 53 nt CTS of VD1 and VD2 can downregulate the activity of P5 by 13.3 %. The comparison in different cell lines showed that P5 possessed high promoter activity in BmN and Hi5 cell lines. Interestingly, P5 also had high activity in Hela cells, a kind of cancer cell of human. Subsequent truncated promoter analysis showed that the 31 nt (-236 to -206 nt) sequence is very important to P5 for the activity down to 36.5 % after deletion of it. While the activity also remained 26.5 % after the deletion of the TATA box, suggesting that the promoter is TATA independent. Moreover, in order to further understand the activity intensity of P5, a comparison with other three promoters, B. mori actin3 (Bm-actin3), B. mori nuclear polyhedrosis virus (BmNPV) immediate early 1 gene promoter (BmNPV-ie-1), and a synthetic promoter (3xP3) was carried out, the result indicated that the activity of P5 was weaker than that of anyone of them.