The role of Pr55(gag) in the annealing of tRNA3Lys to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 genomic RNA.
- 1 May 1999
- journal article
- Vol. 73 (5) , 4485-8
Abstract
During human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) assembly, the primer tRNA for the reverse transcriptase-catalyzed synthesis of minus-strand strong-stop cDNA, tRNA3Lys, is selectively packaged into the virus and annealed onto the primer binding site on the RNA genome. Annealing of tRNA3Lys in HIV-1 is independent of polyprotein processing and is facilitated in vitro by p7 nucleocapsid (NCp7). We have previously shown that mutations in clusters of basic amino acids flanking the first Cys-His box in NC sequence inhibit annealing of tRNA3Lys in vivo by 70 to 80%. In this report, we have investigated whether these NC mutations act through Pr55(gag) or Pr160(gag-pol). In vivo placement of tRNA3Lys is measured with total viral RNA as the source of primer tRNA-template in an in vitro reverse transcription assay. Cotransfection of COS cells with a plasmid coding for either mutant Pr55(gag) or mutant Pr160(gag-pol), and with a plasmid containing HIV-1 proviral DNA, shows that only the NC mutations in Pr55(gag) inhibit tRNA3Lys placement. The NC mutations in Pr55(gag) reduce viral infectivity by 95% and are trans-dominant-negative, i.e., they inhibit genomic placement of tRNA3Lys even in the presence of wild-type Pr55(gag). This dominant phenotype may indicate that the mutant Pr55(gag) is disrupting an ordered Pr55(gag) structure responsible for the annealing of tRNA3Lys to genomic RNA.This publication has 15 references indexed in Scilit:
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