Abstract
BackgroundIn addition to mediating the integration process, HIV-1 integrase (IN) has also been implicated in different steps during viral life cycle including reverse transcription and viral DNA nuclear import. Although the karyophilic property of HIV-1 IN has been well demonstrated using a variety of experimental approaches, the definition of domain(s) and/or motif(s) within the protein that mediate viral DNA nuclear import and its mechanism are still disputed and controversial. In this study, we performed mutagenic analyses to investigate the contribution of different regions in the C-terminal domain of HIV-1 IN to protein nuclear localization as well as their effects on virus infection.ResultsOur analysis showed that replacing lysine residues in two highly conserved tri-lysine regions, which are located within previously described Region C (235WKGPAKLLWKGEGAVV) and sequence Q (211KELQKQITK) in the C-terminal domain of HIV-1 IN, impaired protein nuclear accumulation, while mutations for RK263,4 had no significant effect. Analysis of their effects on viral infection in a VSV-G pseudotyped RT/IN trans-complemented HIV-1 single cycle replication system revealed that all three C-terminal mutant viruses (KK215,9AA, KK240,4AE and RK263,4AA) exhibited more severe defect of induction of β-Gal positive cells and luciferase activity than an IN class 1 mutant D64E in HeLa-CD4-CCR5-β-Gal cells, and in dividing as well as non-dividing C8166 T cells, suggesting that some viral defects are occurring prior to viral integration. Furthermore, by analyzing viral DNA synthesis and the nucleus-associated viral DNA level, the results clearly showed that, although all three C-terminal mutants inhibited viral reverse transcription to different extents, the KK240,4AE mutant exhibited most profound effect on this step, whereas KK215,9AA significantly impaired viral DNA nuclear import. In addition, our analysis could not detect viral DNA integration in each C-terminal mutant infection, even though they displayed various low levels of nucleus-associated viral DNA, suggesting that these C-terminal mutants also impaired viral DNA integration ability.ConclusionAll of these results indicate that, in addition to being involved in HIV-1 reverse transcription and integration, the C-terminal tri-lysine regions of IN also contribute to efficient viral DNA nuclear import during the early stage of HIV-1 replication.
Highlights
In addition to mediating the integration process, human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase (IN) has been implicated in different steps during viral life cycle including reverse transcription and viral DNA nuclear import
Our results showed that mutations of lysine residues in two tri-lysine regions, which are located within previously described Region C and sequence Q [17] in the C-terminal domain of HIV-1 IN, impaired protein nuclear localization, while mutations of arginines at amino acid position of 263 and 264 in the distal part of the C-terminal domain of IN had no significant effect
The C-terminal domain of HIV-1 integrase (IN) is required for the nuclear localization of IN-YFP fusion protein In this study, we first investigated the intracellular localization of HIV-1 IN and delineated the region(s) of IN contributing to its karyophilic property
Summary
In addition to mediating the integration process, HIV-1 integrase (IN) has been implicated in different steps during viral life cycle including reverse transcription and viral DNA nuclear import. The PIC contains viral proteins including RT, IN, nucleocapsid (NC, p9), Vpr and matrix (MA, p17) and this large nucleoprotein complex is capable of actively translocating into the cell nucleus, including that of non-dividing cells (reviewed in reference [7]) This feature is important for the establishment of HIV-1 replication and pathogenesis in exposed hosts, since the infection of postmitotic cells including tissue macrophages, mucosal dendritic cells as well as non-dividing T cells may be essential for viral transmission and dissemination, and for the establishment of persistent viral reservoirs. The mechanism(s) underlying the loss of viral infectivity remains controversial
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