scholarly journals Mutations altering acetylated residues in the CTD of HIV-1 integrase cause defects in proviral transcription at early times after integration of viral DNA

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e1009147
Author(s):  
Shelby Winans ◽  
Stephen P. Goff

The central function of the retroviral integrase protein (IN) is to catalyze the integration of viral DNA into the host genome to form the provirus. The IN protein has also been reported to play a role in a number of other processes throughout the retroviral life cycle such as reverse transcription, nuclear import and particle morphogenesis. Studies have shown that HIV-1 IN is subject to multiple post-translational modifications (PTMs) including acetylation, phosphorylation and SUMOylation. However, the importance of these modifications during infection has been contentious. In this study we attempt to clarify the role of acetylation of HIV-1 IN during the retroviral life cycle. We show that conservative mutation of the known acetylated lysine residues has only a modest effect on reverse transcription and proviral integration efficiency in vivo. However, we observe a large defect in successful expression of proviral genes at early times after infection by an acetylation-deficient IN mutant that cannot be explained by delayed integration dynamics. We demonstrate that the difference between the expression of proviruses integrated by an acetylation mutant and WT IN is likely not due to altered integration site distribution but rather directly due to a lower rate of transcription. Further, the effect of the IN mutation on proviral gene expression is independent of the Tat protein or the LTR promoter. At early times after integration when the transcription defect is observed, the LTRs of proviruses integrated by the mutant IN have altered histone modifications as well as reduced IN protein occupancy. Over time as the transcription defect in the mutant virus diminishes, histone modifications on the WT and mutant proviral LTRs reach comparable levels. These results highlight an unexpected role for the IN protein in regulating proviral transcription at early times post-integration.

2003 ◽  
Vol 77 (2) ◽  
pp. 1469-1480 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Buckman ◽  
William J. Bosche ◽  
Robert J. Gorelick

ABSTRACT Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) containing mutations in the nucleocapsid (NC) Zn2+ finger domains have greatly reduced infectivity, even though genome packaging is largely unaffected in certain cases. To examine replication defects, viral DNA (vDNA) was isolated from cells infected with viruses containing His-to-Cys changes in their Zn2+ fingers (NCH23C and NCH44C), an integrase mutant (IND116N), a double mutant (NCH23C/IND116N), or wild-type HIV-1. In vitro assays have established potential roles for NC in reverse transcription and integration. In vivo results for these processes were obtained by quantitative PCR, cloning of PCR products, and comparison of the quantity and composition of vDNA generated at discrete points during reverse transcription. Quantitative analysis of the reverse transcription intermediates for these species strongly suggests decreased stability of the DNA produced. Both Zn2+ finger mutants appear to be defective in DNA synthesis, with the minus- and plus-strand transfer processes being affected while interior portions of the vDNA remain more intact. Sequences obtained from PCR amplification and cloning of 2-LTR circle junction fragments revealed that the NC mutants had a phenotype similar to the IN mutant; removal of the terminal CA dinucleotides necessary for integration of the vDNA is disabled by the NC mutations. Thus, the loss of infectivity in these NC mutants in vivo appears to result from defective reverse transcription and integration processes stemming from decreased protection of the full-length vDNA. Finally, these results indicate that the chaperone activity of NC extends from the management of viral RNA through to the full-length vDNA.


2016 ◽  
Vol 90 (15) ◽  
pp. 6918-6935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akatsuki Saito ◽  
Matthew S. Henning ◽  
Erik Serrao ◽  
Brittany N. Dubose ◽  
Samantha Teng ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTCleavage and polyadenylation specificity factor subunit 6 (CPSF6), a host factor that interacts with the HIV-1 capsid (CA) protein, is implicated in diverse functions during the early part of the HIV-1 life cycle, including uncoating, nuclear entry, and integration targeting. Preservation of CA binding to CPSF6in vivosuggests that this interaction is fine-tuned for efficient HIV-1 replication in physiologically relevant settings. Nevertheless, this possibility has not been formally examined. To assess the requirement for optimal CPSF6-CA binding during infection of primary cells andin vivo, we utilized a novel CA mutation, A77V, that significantly reduced CA binding to CPSF6. The A77V mutation rendered HIV-1 largely independent from TNPO3, NUP358, and NUP153 for infection and altered the integration site preference of HIV-1 without any discernible effects during the late steps of the virus life cycle. Surprisingly, the A77V mutant virus maintained the ability to replicate in monocyte-derived macrophages, primary CD4+T cells, and humanized mice at a level comparable to that for the wild-type (WT) virus. Nonetheless, revertant viruses that restored the WT CA sequence and hence CA binding to CPSF6 emerged in three out of four A77V-infected animals. These results suggest that the optimal interaction of CA with CPSF6, though not absolutely essential for HIV-1 replication in physiologically relevant settings, confers a significant fitness advantage to the virus and thus is strictly conserved among naturally circulating HIV-1 strains.IMPORTANCECPSF6 interacts with the HIV-1 capsid (CA) protein and has been implicated in nuclear entry and integration targeting. Preservation of CPSF6-CA binding across various HIV-1 strains suggested that the optimal interaction between CA and CPSF6 is critical during HIV-1 replicationin vivo. Here, we identified a novel HIV-1 capsid mutant that reduces binding to CPSF6, is largely independent from the known cofactors for nuclear entry, and alters integration site preference. Despite these changes, virus carrying this mutation replicated in humanized mice at levels indistinguishable from those of the wild-type virus. However, in the majority of the animals, the mutant virus reverted back to the wild-type sequence, hence restoring the wild-type level of CA-CPSF6 interactions. These results suggest that optimal binding of CA to CPSF6 is not absolutely essential for HIV-1 replicationin vivobut provides a fitness advantage that leads to the widespread usage of CPSF6 by HIV-1in vivo.


2000 ◽  
Vol 74 (20) ◽  
pp. 9525-9531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis M. Mansky

ABSTRACT Several studies have indicated that the genetic diversity of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), a virus associated with adult T-cell leukemia, is significantly lower than that of other retroviruses, including that of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). To test whether HTLV-1 variation is lower than other retroviruses, a tractable vector system has been developed to measure reverse transcription accuracy in one round of HTLV-1 replication. This system consists of a HTLV-1 vector that contains a cassette with the neomycin phosphotransferase (neo) gene, a bacterial origin of DNA replication, and the lacZα peptide gene region (the mutational target). The vector was replicated bytrans-complementation with helper plasmids. The in vivo mutation rate for HTLV-1 was determined to be 7 × 10−6 mutations per target base pair per replication cycle. The majority of the mutations identified were base substitution mutations, namely, G-to-A and C-to-T transitions, frameshift mutations, and deletion mutations. Mutation of the methionine residue in the conserved YMDD motif of the HTLV-1 reverse transcriptase to either alanine or valine (i.e., M188A or M188V) led to a factor of two increase in the rate of mutation, indicating the role of this motif in enzyme accuracy. The HTLV-1 in vivo mutation rate is comparable to that of bovine leukemia virus (BLV), another member of the HTLV/BLV genus of retroviruses, and is about fourfold lower than that of HIV-1. These observations indicate that while the mutation rate of HTLV-1 is significantly lower than HIV-1, this lower rate alone would not explain the low diversity in HTLV-1 isolates, supporting the hypothesis that HTLV-1 replicates primarily as a provirus during cellular DNA replication rather than as a virus via reverse transcription.


2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (16) ◽  
pp. 8119-8129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eytan Herzig ◽  
Nickolay Voronin ◽  
Nataly Kucherenko ◽  
Amnon Hizi

ABSTRACTThe process of reverse transcription (RTN) in retroviruses is essential to the viral life cycle. This key process is catalyzed exclusively by the viral reverse transcriptase (RT) that copies the viral RNA into DNA by its DNA polymerase activity, while concomitantly removing the original RNA template by its RNase H activity. During RTN, the combination between DNA synthesis and RNA hydrolysis leads to strand transfers (or template switches) that are critical for the completion of RTN. The balance between these RT-driven activities was considered to be the sole reason for strand transfers. Nevertheless, we show here that a specific mutation in HIV-1 RT (L92P) that does not affect the DNA polymerase and RNase H activities abolishes strand transfer. There is also a good correlation between this complete loss of the RT's strand transfer to the loss of the DNA clamp activity of the RT, discovered recently by us. This finding indicates a mechanistic linkage between these two functions and that they are both direct and unique functions of the RT (apart from DNA synthesis and RNA degradation). Furthermore, when the RT's L92P mutant was introduced into an infectious HIV-1 clone, it lost viral replication, due to inefficient intracellular strand transfers during RTN, thus supporting thein vitrodata. As far as we know, this is the first report on RT mutants that specifically and directly impair RT-associated strand transfers. Therefore, targeting residue Leu92 may be helpful in selectively blocking this RT activity and consequently HIV-1 infectivity and pathogenesis.IMPORTANCEReverse transcription in retroviruses is essential for the viral life cycle. This multistep process is catalyzed by viral reverse transcriptase, which copies the viral RNA into DNA by its DNA polymerase activity (while concomitantly removing the RNA template by its RNase H activity). The combination and balance between synthesis and hydrolysis lead to strand transfers that are critical for reverse transcription completion. We show here for the first time that a single mutation in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (L92P) selectively abolishes strand transfers without affecting the enzyme's DNA polymerase and RNase H functions. When this mutation was introduced into an infectious HIV-1 clone, viral replication was lost due to an impaired intracellular strand transfer, thus supporting thein vitrodata. Therefore, finding novel drugs that target HIV-1 reverse transcriptase Leu92 may be beneficial for developing new potent and selective inhibitors of retroviral reverse transcription that will obstruct HIV-1 infectivity.


Retrovirology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Fennessey ◽  
Celine Camus ◽  
Taina T. Immonen ◽  
Carolyn Reid ◽  
Frank Maldarelli ◽  
...  

Blood ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 1141-1149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tessie B. McNeely ◽  
Diane C. Shugars ◽  
Mary Rosendahl ◽  
Christina Tucker ◽  
Stephen P. Eisenberg ◽  
...  

Abstract Infection of monocytes with human immunodeficiency virus type 1Ba-L (HIV-1Ba-L ) is significantly inhibited by treatment with the serine protease inhibitor, secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI). SLPI does not appear to act on virus directly, but rather the inhibitory activity is most likely due to interaction with the host cell. The current study was initiated to investigate how SLPI interacts with monocytes to inhibit infection. SLPI was found to bind to monocytes with high affinity to a single class of receptor sites (∼7,000 receptors per monocyte, KD = 3.6 nmol/L). The putative SLPI receptor was identified as a surface protein with a molecular weight of 55 ± 5 kD. A well-characterized function of SLPI is inhibition of neutrophil elastase and cathepsin G. However, two SLPI mutants (or muteins) that contain single amino acid substitutions and exhibit greatly reduced protease inhibitory activity still bound to monocytes and retained anti–HIV-1 activity. SLPI consists of two domains, of which the C-terminal domain contains the protease inhibiting region. However, when tested independently, neither domain had potent anti–HIV-1 activity. SLPI binding neither prevented virus binding to monocytes nor attenuated the infectivity of any virus progeny that escaped inhibition by SLPI. A polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assay for newly generated viral DNA demonstrated that SLPI blocks at or before viral DNA synthesis. Therefore, it most likely inhibits a step of viral infection that occurs after virus binding but before reverse transcription. Taken together, the unique antiviral activity of SLPI, which may be independent of its previously characterized antiprotease activity, appears to reside in disruption of the viral infection process soon after virus binding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathrin Sutter ◽  
Kerry J. Lavender ◽  
Ronald J. Messer ◽  
Marek Widera ◽  
Katie Williams ◽  
...  

AbstractCombination antiretroviral therapy (cART) prevents HIV-1 replication but does not eliminate the latent reservoir and cure the infection. Type I interferons (IFN) mediate antiviral effects through different mechanisms than cART. We previously showed that IFNα14 is the most potent IFNα subtype against HIV-1 and that it can significantly reduce the HIV-1 proviral reservoir. This study sought to determine whether combining cART with IFNα14 therapy would produce greater reductions in HIV-1 viral and proviral loads than ART alone. Immunodeficient Rag2−/−γc−/−CD47−/− C57BL/6 mice were humanized by the BLT method, infected with HIV-1JR-CSF and the in vivo efficacy of cART was compared with combined cART/IFNα14 therapy. Infection was allowed to establish for 6 weeks prior to 4 weeks of treatment with oral cART either with or without IFNα14. Plasma viral RNA and splenic CD4+ T cell viral DNA levels were measured immediately after treatment and after 2 weeks of therapy interruption. Augmentation of cART with IFNα14 resulted in significantly enhanced suppression of HIV-1 plasma viremia. However, no significant reduction in total viral DNA was detectable. Furthermore, virus rebounded after treatment interruption to similar levels in both groups. Thus, augmentation of cART with IFNα14 resulted in a more pronounced reduction of HIV viremia levels over cART alone, but the effect was not potent enough to be detected at the viral DNA level or to prevent virus rebound following therapy interruption in immune system-humanized mice.


2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (10) ◽  
pp. 5325-5330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam MacNeil ◽  
Abdoulaye Dieng Sarr ◽  
Jean-Louis Sankalé ◽  
Seema Thakore Meloni ◽  
Souleymane Mboup ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Studies have shown that human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) is less pathogenic than HIV-1, with a lower rate of disease progression. Similarly, plasma viral loads are lower in HIV-2 infection, suggesting that HIV-2 replication is restricted in vivo in comparison to that of HIV-1. However, to date, in vivo studies characterizing replication intermediates in the viral life cycle of HIV-2 have been limited. In order to test the hypothesis that HIV-2 has a lower replication rate in vivo than HIV-1 does, we quantified total viral DNA, integrated proviral DNA, cell-associated viral mRNA, and plasma viral loads in peripheral blood samples from groups of therapy-naïve HIV-1-infected (n = 21) and HIV-2-infected (n = 18) individuals from Dakar, Senegal, with CD4+ T-cell counts of >200/μl. Consistent with our previous findings, total viral DNA loads were similar between HIV-1 and HIV-2 and plasma viral loads were higher among HIV-1-infected individuals. Proportions of DNA in the integrated form were also similar between these viruses. In contrast, levels of viral mRNA were lower in HIV-2 infection. Our study indicates that HIV-2 is able to establish a stable, integrated proviral infection in vivo, but that accumulation of viral mRNA is attenuated in HIV-2 infection relative to that in HIV-1 infection. The differences in viral mRNA are consistent with the differences in plasma viral loads between HIV-1 and HIV-2 and suggest that lower plasma viral loads, and possibly the attenuated pathogenesis of HIV-2, can be explained by lower rates of viral replication in vivo.


2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (23) ◽  
pp. 11710-11722 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fei Guo ◽  
Shan Cen ◽  
Meijuan Niu ◽  
Jenan Saadatmand ◽  
Lawrence Kleiman

ABSTRACT Cells are categorized as being permissive or nonpermissive according to their ability to produce infectious human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) lacking the viral protein Vif. Nonpermissive cells express the human cytidine deaminase APOBEC3G (hA3G), and Vif has been shown to bind to APOBEC3G and facilitate its degradation. Vif-negative HIV-1 virions produced in nonpermissive cells incorporate hA3G and have a severely reduced ability to produce viral DNA in newly infected cells. While it has been proposed that the reduction in DNA production is due to hA3G-facilitated deamination of cytidine, followed by DNA degradation, we provide evidence here that a decrease in the synthesis of the DNA by reverse transcriptase may account for a significant part of this reduction. During the infection of cells with Vif-negative HIV-1 produced from 293T cells transiently expressing hA3G, much of the inhibition of early (≥50% reduction) and late (≥95% reduction) viral DNA production, and of viral infectivity (≥95% reduction), can occur independently of DNA deamination. The inhibition of the production of early minus-sense strong stop DNA is also correlated with a similar inability of tRNA3 Lys to prime reverse transcription. A similar reduction in tRNA3 Lys priming and viral infectivity is also seen in the naturally nonpermissive cell H9, albeit at significantly lower levels of hA3G expression.


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