Expression of E1A in terminally differentiated muscle cells reactivates the cell cycle and suppresses tissue-specific genes by separable mechanisms.

Terminally differentiated cells are characterized by permanent withdrawal from the cell cycle; they do not enter S phase even when stimulated by growth factors or retroviral oncogenes. We have shown, however, that the adenovirus E1A oncogene can reactivate the cell cycle in terminally differentiated cells. In this report, we describe the molecular events triggered by E1A in terminally differentiated skeletal muscle cells. We found that in myotubes infected with the adenovirus mutant dl520, 12S E1A bypasses the early G1 phase and activates the expression of late-G1 genes, such as the cyclin E and cyclin A genes, cdk2, PCNA, and B-myb. Of these, the cyclin E gene and cdk2 were significantly overexpressed in comparison with levels in proliferating, undifferentiated myoblasts. p130 and pRb were phosphorylated before the infected myotubes entered S phase, despite the high expression of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21, and E2F was released. Our results suggest that one of the mechanisms that E1A uses to overcome the proliferative block of terminally differentiated cells involves coordinated overexpression of cyclin E and cdk2. Following E1A expression, the myogenic transcription factors MyoD and myogenin and the muscle-specific structural genes encoding muscle creatine kinase and myosin heavy chain were downregulated. The muscle regulatory factors were also silenced in myotubes infected with adenovirus E1A mutants incapable of reactivating the cell cycle in terminally differentiated muscle cells. Thus, the suppression of the differentiation program is not a consequence of cell cycle reactivation in myotubes, and it is induced by an independent mechanism. Our results show that E1A reactivates the cell cycle and suppresses tissue-specific gene expression in terminally differentiated muscle cells, thus causing dedifferentiation.