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Journal of Virology, July 2000, p. 6251-6261, Vol. 74, No. 14
McGill AIDS Centre, Lady Davis
Institute-Jewish General Hospital, Montreal, Québec, Canada H3T
1E2, and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, McGill University,
Montreal, Québec, Canada H3A 2B4
Received 27 January 2000/Accepted 21 April 2000
We have studied the role of an RNA region at nucleotides (nt) +200
to +233, just downstream of the 5' long terminal repeat, in
encapsidation of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 genomic RNA. Three
deletion mutations, namely, BH-D0, BH-D1, and BH-D2, were
generated to eliminate sequences at positions nt +200 to +219, +200 to
+226, and +200 to +233. The result in each case was decreased levels of
packaging of viral RNA into the mutated viruses, with the BH-D2 virus
being the most severely affected. Consistently, all three deletions
resulted in impaired viral infectiousness and the BH-D2 mutation showed
the most dramatic impact in this regard. Further analysis revealed
additional defects in Gag precursor processing and in the extension
efficiency of the tRNA3Lys primer in reverse
transcription reactions performed with these mutated viruses. To shed
further light on the function of these deleted sequences in viral
replication, the mutated viruses were cultured in MT-2 cells over
prolonged periods to enable them to reacquire wild-type replication
kinetics. Sequencing of the reverted viruses revealed point mutations
in both the noncoding region and the gag gene. In the case
of the BH-D0 revertant, two mutations were observed at positions G112A
in the U5 region, termed M1, and T24I in the nucleocapsid protein,
termed MNC, respectively. Either of these two mutations was able to
confer wild-type replication capacity on BH-D0. In the case of BH-D1,
each of the M1 mutations, a mutation termed M2, i.e., C227T, just
downstream of the primer binding site, a mutation termed MP2 (T12I) in
the p2 protein, and the MNC mutation were observed. A combination of
either M1 and M2 or MP2 and MNC was able to rescue BH-D1. In the case
of the BH-D2 deletion-containing viruses, three point mutations, i.e.,
M1, MP2, and MNC, were observed and the presence of all three was
required to restore viral replication to wild-type levels.
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Deletion Mutagenesis Downstream of the 5' Long Terminal Repeat of
Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Is Compensated for by Point
Mutations in both the U5 Region and gag Gene
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: McGill AIDS
Centre, Lady Davis Institute-Jewish General Hospital, 3755 Cote
Ste-Catherine Rd., Montreal, Québec, Canada H3T 1E2. Phone: (514)
340-8260. Fax: (514) 340-7537. E-mail:
mdwa{at}musica.mcgill.ca.
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