Identification of paired immunoglobulin-like type 2 receptor α as hepatitis B virus DNA polymerase transactivated protein 1 interacting proteins

Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) DNA polymerase transactivated protein 1 (HBVDNAPTP1) is a novel protein transfected by HBV DNA polymerase, which has been screened by a suppression subtractive hybridization technique. In the present study, a yeast two-hybrid system was used to screen the proteins interacting with HBVDNAPTP1 in leukocytes in order to investigate the biological function of HBVDNAPTP1. The HBVDNAPTP1 coding sequence was cloned into a pGEM-T vector. Subsequent to sequencing, the HBVDNAPTP1 was subcloned into the bait plasmid pGBKT7 and transformed into yeast AH109. Western blotting confirmed the presence of HBVDNAPTP1 expression in the AH109 yeast strains. The transformed yeast AH109 cells were mated with Y187 yeast cells containing the leucocyte cDNA library pACT2 plasmids in 2X yeast extract peptone D-glucose adenine (YPDA) medium. For selection and screening, diploid yeast was plated on synthetic dropout medium (SD/-Trp-Leu-His-Ade) containing X-α-gal. Following sequencing and the verification of the open reading frames of positive colonies, four different proteins were obtained. To further confirm the interaction between HBVDNAPTP1 and the screened proteins, paired immunoglobulin-like type 2 receptor α (PILRA), one of the positive colonies, was cloned. The glutathione S-transferase pull-down in vitro assay and a co-immunoprecipitation in vivo assay were used to examine the interaction between HBVDNAPTP1 and PILRA, respectively. HBVDNAPTP1 may be involved in the negative regulation of the PILRA‑mediated Janus-activated kinase/signal tranducer and activator of transcription signaling pathway, and exert a positive effect on the initiation of monocyte apoptosis. These results contribute our knowledge of the biological functions of HBVDNAPTP1 and provide novel data to aid in the further analysis of the regulatory mechanism of this protein.