Abstract
Upon infection, human papillomavirus (HPV) manipulates host cell gene expression to create an environment that is supportive of a productive and persistent infection. The virus-induced changes to the host cell's transcriptome are thought to contribute to carcinogenesis. Here, we show by RNA-sequencing that oncogenic HPV18 episome replication in primary human foreskin keratinocytes (HFKs) drives host transcriptional changes that are consistent between multiple HFK donors. We have previously shown that HPV18 recruits the host protein CTCF to viral episomes to control the differentiation-dependent viral transcriptional programme. Since CTCF is an important regulator of host cell transcription via coordination of epigenetic boundaries and long-range chromosomal interactions, we hypothesised that HPV18 may also manipulate CTCF to contribute to host transcription reprogramming. Analysis of CTCF binding in the host cell genome by ChIP-Seq revealed that while the total number of CTCF binding sites is not altered by the virus, there are a sub-set of CTCF binding sites that are either enriched or depleted of CTCF. Many of these altered sites are clustered within regulatory elements of differentially expressed genes, including the tumour suppressor gene cell adhesion molecule 1 (CADM1), which supresses epithelial cell growth and invasion. We show that HPV18 establishment results in reduced CTCF binding at the CADM1 promoter and upstream enhancer. Loss of CTCF binding is coincident with epigenetic repression of CADM1, in the absence of CpG hypermethylation, while adjacent genes including the transcriptional regulator ZBTB16 are activated. These data indicate that the CADM1 locus is subject to topological rearrangement following HPV18 establishment. We tested this hypothesis using 4C-Seq (circular chromosome confirmation capture-sequencing) and show that HPV18 establishment causes a loss of long-range chromosomal interactions between the CADM1 transcriptional start site and the upstream transcriptional enhancer. These data show that HPV18 manipulates host cell promoter-enhancer interactions to drive transcriptional reprogramming that may contribute to HPV-induced disease progression.