5-Azacytidine induction of a cellular heat shock protein and expression of the major immediate early protein of human cytomegalovirus in Vero cells.

Human cytomegalovirus can support an abortive infection in Vero cells and only some immediate early events are expressed in a low proportion of the cell population. It has been shown that cellular factors partially remove blocks in cells abortively or latently infected by HCMV, whereas 5-azacytidine is known to act on gene expression and cell differentiation. In this work we present evidence that the treatment of HCMV infected Vero cells with 5-azacytidine induces the expression of the major immediate early protein (68K) of Human cytomegalovirus by enhancing a 72K cellular heat shock protein.