Stable ΔN-IκBα Expressing HOS-DS-Red (HOS-DS-Red/ΔN-IκBα) Cell Line

Human Osetosarcoma (HOS) cells were transfected using electorporation with the piggyBac transposon and plasmid carrying a transposase gene to stably express a degradation resistant I-κBα (ΔN-I-κBα) under the control of a SV40 promoter. Successful clones were selected for through puromycin resistance. As a result of the constitutive repression of NF-κB by the degradation resistant inhibitor ΔN-I-κBα, these cell are resistant to senescence caused by infection with human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1). Thus, HOS-DS-Red/ΔN-IκBα cells can be productively infected by HTLV-1. This line also contains a reporter cassette containing 18 copies of Tax-inducible HTLV-1 21bp repeat, the HTLV-1 TATA element, complete R region, and part of the U5 sequence fused with a gene for DS-Red fluorescence protein (DS-Red) so that upon infection of cells with HTLV-1, the DS-Red protein is expressed. It is suggested that this cell line can be used to study of HTLV-1 replication in cell culture.