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The divergent clinical outcomes of human T cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) and HTLV-2 infections have been attributed to functional differences in their antisense proteins. In contrast to HTLV-1 bZIP factor (HBZ), the role of the antisense protein of HTLV-2 (APH-2) in HTLV-2 infection is poorly understood. In previous studies, we identified the endosomal sorting complex required for transport 0 (ESCRT-0) subunit HRS as a novel interaction partner of APH-2 but not HBZ. HRS is a master regulator of endosomal protein sorting for lysosomal degradation and is hijacked by many viruses to promote replication. However, no studies to date have shown a link between HTLVs and HRS. In this study, we sought to characterize the interaction between HRS and APH-2 and to investigate the impact of HRS on the life cycle of HTLV-2. We confirmed a direct specific interaction between APH-2 and HRS and showed that the CC2 domain of HRS and the N-terminal domain of APH-2 mediate their interaction. We demonstrated that HRS recruits APH-2 to early endosomes, possibly furnishing an entry route into the endosomal/lysosomal pathway. We demonstrated that inhibition of this pathway using either bafilomycin or HRS overexpression substantially extends the half-life of APH-2 and stabilizes Tax2B expression levels. We found that HRS enhances Tax2B-mediated long terminal repeat (LTR) activation, while depletion of HRS enhances HTLV-2 production and release, indicating that HRS may have a negative impact on HTLV-2 replication. Overall, our study provides important new insights into the role of the ESCRT-0 HRS protein, and by extension the ESCRT machinery and the endosomal/lysosomal pathway, in HTLV-2 infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT) pathway plays key roles in multivesicular bodies (MVBs) formation and lysosomal degradation of membrane receptors, viral budding, and midbody abscission during cytokinesis. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is regarded as a prototypical cargo of the MVB/ESCRT pathway and following stimulation by epidermal growth factor (EGF) EGFR/EGF complexes are internalized, sorted into MVBs, and degraded by lysosomes or recycled back to the cell membrane. Here, we describe an assay to analyze the effect of human T-cell leukemia (HTLV) regulatory proteins on the functionality of ESCRT-dependent MVB/lysosomal trafficking of EGFR/EGF complexes. This is performed by direct visualization and quantification of the rate of EGF-Alexa595/EGFR internalization and degradation in HeLa cells expressing HTLV regulatory proteins by immunofluorescence and western blot.