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Journal of Virology, August 2006, p. 7832-7843, Vol. 80, No. 16
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00374-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Altered Gag Polyprotein Cleavage Specificity of Feline Immunodeficiency Virus/Human Immunodeficiency Virus Mutant Proteases as Demonstrated in a Cell-Based Expression System

Ying-Chuan Lin,1 Ashraf Brik,2,{dagger} Aymeric de Parseval,1 Karen Tam,1 Bruce E. Torbett,3 Chi-Huey Wong,2 and John H. Elder1*

Departments of Molecular Biology,1 Chemistry,2 Molecular and Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 920373

Received 22 February 2006/ Accepted 25 May 2006

We have used feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) protease (PR) as a mutational system to study the molecular basis of substrate-inhibitor specificity for lentivirus PRs, with a focus on human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) PR. Our previous mutagenesis studies demonstrated that discrete substitutions in the active site of FIV PR with structurally equivalent residues of HIV-1 PR dramatically altered the specificity of the mutant PRs in in vitro analyses. Here, we have expanded these studies to analyze the specificity changes in each mutant FIV PR expressed in the context of the natural Gag-Pol polyprotein ex vivo. Expression mutants were prepared in which 4 to 12 HIV-1-equivalent substitutions were made in FIV PR, and cleavage of each Gag-Pol polyprotein was then assessed in pseudovirions from transduced cells. The findings demonstrated that, as with in vitro analyses, inhibitor specificities of the mutants showed increased HIV-1 PR character when analyzed against the natural substrate. In addition, all of the mutant PRs still processed the FIV polyprotein but the apparent order of processing was altered relative to that observed with wild-type FIV PR. Given the importance of the order in which Gag-Pol is processed, these findings likely explain the failure to produce infectious FIVs bearing these mutations.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Molecular Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 N. Torrey Pines Road, MB14, La Jolla, CA. Phone: (858) 784-8270. Fax: (858) 784-2750. E-mail: jelder{at}scripps.edu.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Chemistry, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.

Journal of Virology, August 2006, p. 7832-7843, Vol. 80, No. 16
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00374-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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