The Rb binding domain of HPV31 E7 is required to maintain high levels of DNA repair factors in infected cells

Human papillomaviruses (HPV) exhibit constitutive activation of ATM and ATR DNA damage response (DDR) pathways, which are required for productive viral replication. Expression of HPV31 E7 alone is sufficient to activate the DDR through an unknown mechanism. Here, we demonstrate that the E7 Rb binding domain is required to increase levels of many DDR proteins, including ATM, Chk2, Chk1, the MRN components MRE11, Rad50, and NBS1, as well as the homologous recombination repair proteins BRCA1 and Rad51. Interestingly, we have found that the increase in these DNA repair proteins does not occur solely at the level of transcription, but that E7 broadly increases the half-life of these DDR factors, a phenotype that is lost in the E7 Rb binding mutant. These data suggest that HPV-31 upregulates DNA repair factors necessary for replication by increasing protein half-life in a manner requiring the E7 Rb binding domain.