Previous Article | Next Article 
Journal of Virology, August 2002, p. 7868-7873, Vol. 76, No. 15
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.15.7868-7873.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Analysis of Natural Variants of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 gag-pol Frameshift Stem-Loop Structure
Amalio Telenti,* Raquel Martinez, Miguel Munoz, Gabriela Bleiber, Gilbert Greub, Dominique Sanglard, and Solange Peters
Division of Infectious Diseases and Institute of Microbiology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland
Received 7 November 2001/
Accepted 23 April 2002

ABSTRACT
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 uses ribosomal frameshifting
for translation of the Gag-Pol polyprotein. Frameshift activities
are thought to be tightly regulated. Analysis of
gag p1 sequences
from 270 plasma virions identified in 64% of the samples the
occurrence of polymorphism that could lead to changes in thermodynamic
stability of the stem-loop. Expression in
Saccharomyces cerevisiae of p1-ß-galactosidase fusion proteins from 10 representative
natural stem-loop variants and three laboratory mutant constructs
(predicted the thermodynamic stability [
G°] ranging from
-23.0 to -4.3 kcal/mol) identified a reduction in frameshift
activity of 13 to 67% compared with constructs with the wild-type
stem-loop (
G°, -23.5 kcal/mol). Viruses carrying stem-loops
associated with greater than 60% reductions in frameshift activity
presented profound defects in viral replication. In contrast,
viruses with stem-loop structures associated with 16 to 42%
reductions in frameshift efficiency displayed no significant
viral replication deficit.

TEXT
In human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the frameshift
structure needed for translation of the Gag-Pol precursor polyprotein
includes a slippery heptamer (UUUUUUA) region that allows ribosome
repositioning in -1 frame and, seven nucleotides downstream,
a 28-nucleotide stem-loop structure that putatively facilitates
ribosomal pausing and shifting (
11,
12,
18,
20). These elements
are encoded by the conserved
p1 region (
1). HIV-1 polyproteins
Gag and Gag-Pol are produced at estimated 9:1 to 19:1 stoichiometry
ratios, depending on the in vitro or in vivo systems used to
analyze the phenomenon (
17,
18). Changes in frameshifting have
the potential to dramatically alter viral assembly (
8,
14,
17)
and, thus, are thought to be tightly regulated (
15). In the
L-A double-stranded RNA virus of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae, increasing
or decreasing the frameshift efficiency more than twofold by
alterations in the slippery site disrupts viral propagation
(
7).
The identification of frequent clinical viral isolates carrying variant frameshift structures by us and by others (4) led us to perform a detailed analysis of the functionality of polymorphic stem-loops and to explore the issue of the tight control of the frameshift frequency proposed as necessary for correct viral assembly. For this purpose, we determined the in vivo frameshifting activities of a series of natural and mutant variants of the stem-loop, as well as the phenotype (protein maturation, reverse transcriptase [RT] activity, infectivity, and replication) of recombinant viruses carrying variant stem-loops.
Circulating viruses frequently present stem-loop polymorphism.
The frequency of stem-loop variants was established in a series of p1 sequences obtained from plasma virions from 270 HIV-1-infected individuals (Table 1). The sequence obtained reflected the majority population in plasma. In 64% of the samples studied, we observed p1 polymorphism that could lead to changes in the thermodynamic stability of the stem-loop. The thermodynamic stability at 37°C of the stem-loop structures was calculated by using the mfold program (http://bioinfo.math.rpi.edu/
mfold/rna/form1.cgi) (Table 1). The clinical characteristics of HIV-1 infection in individuals infected with stem-loop variants did not differ from those of individuals infected with wild-type viruses: viremia and CD4 count at initiation of antiretroviral therapy were (mean ± standard deviation) 4.23 ± 1.00 log RNA copies/ml and 218 ± 190 CD4 cells/µl for variant stem-loop strains versus 4.39 ± 1.12 log RNA copies/ml and 202 ± 194 CD4 cells/µl for the wild-type strains (P > 0.05). There was no relationship between predicted stem-loop thermodynamic stability and virological or immunological parameters.
p1 stem-loop variants selected to represent a range of predicted
thermodynamic stabilities were introduced by site-directed mutagenesis
(Quickchange; Stratagene, Basel, Switzerland) into the NL4-3
laboratory strain. In addition, three additional constructs,
mut2a, mut4a, and mut6a, were created by replacement of two,
four, and six stem-loop nucleotides in pNL4-3 with adenine by
site-directed mutagenesis (Table
1). Recombinant viruses were
obtained by HeLa cell transfection (Geneporter transfection
reagent; Axon Labs, Baden, Switzerland).
Variant stem-loops from clinical isolates display reduced frameshift activity.
Construction of frameshift reporter vectors for in vivo expression in S. cerevisiae FY1679-28C (MATaura3-52 trp1 leu2-1 his3-200) (6) used the LacZ reporter vector pCDR1-p367lacZ (D. Sanglard, unpublished data). The different p1 variants were amplified by PCR with primers Y1 (5'AAAAGGTCGACTGGAAATGTGGNAAGGADGGACAC) and Y3 (5' AACCTGAAGCTTTCTTCTGGTGGGGCTGTTGG) and cloned after the start codon of lacZ after digestion with SalI and HindIII so that the reporter was placed in -1 frame relative to the initiation codon. Minus one frame vectors have been previously used to demonstrate that frameshifting is performed in yeast in response to retroviral mRNA signals (15). An in-frame positive control was built by using primers Y1 and Y4 (5'AACCTGAAGCTTCTCTTCTGGTGGGGCTGTTGG). An out-of-frame negative control was built by insertion of an unrelated 241-bp fragment into pCDR1-p367lacZ. Transformation of S. cerevisiae was performed by the lithium acetate method (9). After transformation, colonies were grown on YNB medium (0.67% yeast nitrogen base, 2% glucose, 0.25% uracil, 1% histidine, 1% tryptophan, 2% agar) plates. Transformants were resuspended in 5 ml of YNB medium and grown to an optical density of 0.4 to 0.6. The expression levels of the various p1-LacZ fusion proteins were assessed by the ß-galactosidase liquid assay. Reproducibility of results was ensured by simultaneous transformation of the same batch of competent S. cerevisiae FY1679-28C (to minimize intra-assay variation) and analysis in triplicate on pooled transformants for each clone (to minimize intertransformant variation). To assess interassay variation, experiments were performed thee times on separate days.
Frameshift analyses used the stem-loop of NL4-3, 13 stem-loops from clinical isolates (3 wild-type and 10 variant stem-loop sequences), and 3 mutant stem-loops derived from mutant clones (mut2a, mut4a, and mut6a). While cloning of the p1 regions from NL4-3 and three wild-type clinical isolates resulted in a mean (± the standard error of the mean [SEM]) frameshift activity in S. cerevisiae of 3.91% ± 0.23%, all variant stem-loops presented diminished expression of the p1-ß-galactosidase fusion protein with frameshift ratios of 2.45% ± 0.17% (ranging from 1.55 to 3.21%; P < 0.001) (Fig. 1). These translate into an overall frameshift reduction of 18 to 60% in variant stem-loop constructs versus the wild type NL4-3 stem-loop. The stem-loop mutant mut2a (
G°, -17.6 kcal/mol) had a frameshift ratio of 3.17% ± 0.09%, while mut4a (
G°, -10.2 kcal/mol) and mut6a (
G°, -4.3 kcal/mol) displayed markedly diminished frameshift activities, 1.26% ± 0.17% and 1.38% ± 0.16%, compared to that of the wild-type NL4-3 stem-loop, 68 and 65% reductions, respectively. Deletion of the stem-loop has been reported to result in a 65 to 83% reduction in frameshifting in eukaryotic expression systems (S. cerevisiae, QT6, COS-7, and mouse NIH 3T3 cells) (2, 18). There was a correlation between the calculated thermodynamic stability of the stem-loop and the frameshift activity (r = -0.58, P = 0.01). The inter- and intra-assay coefficients of variation were 18.7 and 20.8%, respectively.
Recombinant clones with variant stem-loops display a range of infectivity, Pol incorporation into virions, and replication.
There are limited data on the behavior of molecular clones or
of mutant HIV-1 with changes in the
p1 region. Mutation of the
slippage site resulting in overexpression of the Gag-Pol precursor
results in a limited effect on overall viral gene expression,
yet viral particle formation is inhibited (
11,
17). Drastic
mutation in the stem-loop, including deletion, has been shown
to result in diminished synthesis of Gag-Pol upon transfection
of QT6 or COS-7 cells (
18), but no data on the phenotype of
emerging viruses are available. To better understand the effect
of variant stem-loops on the viral phenotype, we studied three
natural variant
p1 molecular clones and three mutants constructed
by site-directed mutagenesis in pNL4-3. These were chosen to
represent the spectrum of predicted free energy and in vitro
frameshifting activities: stem-loop variants A33G (the most
common variant stem-loop in clinical isolates;
G°, -23.0
kcal/mol; frameshift ratio, 3.20), A34C (
G°, -19.4 kcal/mol;
frameshift ratio, 3.09), and G32A (
G°, -16.7 kcal/mol; frameshift
ratio, 2.21) and mut2a (
G°, -17.6 kcal/mol; frameshift ratio,
3.17), mut4a (
G°, -10.2 kcal/mol; frameshift ratio, 1.26),
and mut6a (
G°, -4.3 kcal/mol; frameshift ratio, 1.38).
The single-cycle infectivity assay (3) used GHOST-CXCR4 cells obtained through the National Institutes of Health AIDS Research and Reference Reagent Program from D. Littman and V. K. Ramani. The infectious titer was determined by fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis as the proportion of green fluorescent protein-positive cells. Viruses carrying natural variant stem-loops and mu2a viruses displayed no infectivity deficit compared to NL4-3: mean ± SEM percentage of infected cells of 36.7% ± 1.3% versus 32.4% ± 5.2%, respectively (P = 0.3; there was no significant difference for each of the one-to-one comparisons) (Fig. 2). In contrast, mut4a (16.6% ± 0.2% infected cells) and mut6a (19.1% ± 0.7% infected cells) presented impaired infectivity compared to that of wild-type NL4-3 (P = 0.02) (Fig. 2).
Analysis of particle-associated and cell-associated viral proteins
was performed by transfecting COS-7 cells as previously described
(
3). On sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
analysis of immunoprecipitated proteins, mut4a and mut6a displayed
a marked maturation impairment, as indicated by the presence
in the virion of a large concentration of unprocessed Gag55,
accumulation of a high-molecular-weight species (probably the
p160 Gag-Pol precursor), and a markedly diminished content of
the Pol products RT66, RT51, and integrase IN32 (Fig.
3A). Western
blot analysis with a rabbit anti-p24 polyclonal antibody (Division
of AIDS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
Rockville, Md.) diluted 1:50,000 in blocking solution (5% powdered
milk, 0.05% Tween 20) and a mouse anti-RT monoclonal antibody
(Intracell, Issaquah, Wash.) diluted 1:200 in blocking solution
confirmed the impaired maturation of Gag and a profound deficit
in RT incorporation for mut4a and mut6a: estimation of the RT-to-Gag
(Gag55 plus p24) ratio indicated 73 and 77% reductions in the
RT content of particles compared to that of NL4-3 (Fig.
3B).
Western blot analysis also identified moderate maturation impairment
and a reduction in the RT content of clones mut2a (33% reduction
in RT content), G32A (46% reduction in RT content), A33G (25%
reduction in RT content), and A34C (56% reduction in RT content)
compared to that of NL4-3 (Fig.
3B).
To assess the replication competence of the different molecular
clones, peripheral blood lymphocytes (3
x 10
6 cells) were infected
with recombinant virus (3,000 pg of p24 antigen) in 1 ml of
supplemented RPMI 1640 medium for 3 h. Thereafter, the residual
inoculum was removed by washing and cells were maintained in
culture for 10 days at 10
6 cells/ml. Aliquots of culture supernatant
were collected to monitor viral replication with an HIV-1 p24
antigen enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (HIVAG-1 Monoclonal;
Abbott) (
3). The stability of the various mutations was confirmed
by sequencing of the viruses at completion of the replication
kinetics assay. Viruses carrying natural stem-loop variants
and mutant mut2a replicated efficiently. In contrast, mut4a
and mut6a showed severely impaired replication (Fig.
4). Thus,
despite the diminished frameshift activities of the stem-loop
variants and the mut2a clone and the deficit in Pol and Gag
maturation observed by Western blotting, there is a conserved
infectivity and replication efficiency of viruses. Possible
explanations include (i) the production of sufficient numbers
of correctly assembled and matured particles in culture (where,
in any case, the majority of virions are noninfectious) and
(ii) a progressive maturation of viral particles after budding
that might allow recovery of infectivity over time (
5,
13).
The latter hypothesis was examined, and no postbudding maturation
was observed (results not shown).
We assume that the impairment of molecular clones mut4a and
mut6a relates solely to the changes in stem-loop function and
not to associated changes in the peptides encoded by the
p1 region. There is no recognized function for the p1Gag peptide
and limited information on the corresponding transframe peptide
(
16,
19). Most natural variants have amino acid polymorphism
in either frame. The mutant clones presented S8T (mut2a), P7K
and S8T (mut4a), and P7K and S8K (mut6a) substitutions in p1
Gag and F8N (mut2a), F8K and P(L)9T (mut4a), and F8K and P(L)9K
(mut6a) substitutions in the transframe peptide-p6
Pol that would
potentially alter the transframe octapeptide-p6Pol cleavage
site. Processing of protease from Gag-Pol and optimal catalytic
activity require native cleavage sites (
16,
19), and it is conceivable
that some of the processivity defects observed do reflect changes
in protease activation rather than defects derived from changes
in frameshift activity. Unfortunately, modification of the stem-loop
by two, four, and six nucleotides to achieve progressive changes
in stem-loop stability without altering one or both reading
frames (p1Pol and p1Gag) was not feasible.
Thus, despite predicted changes in the thermodynamic stability of variant stem-loop structures, decreased frameshifting in reporter constructs, and impairment of Gag-Pol maturation, the phenotype of molecular clones carrying natural variants of the stem-loop is that of infectious viruses. This may reflect a tolerance in HIV-1 for a wider range of frameshifting rates than previously considered or the existence of adequate compensatory viral mechanisms (10). Constructs with more profound destabilization of the stem-loop and further reductions in frameshifting activity presented a disruption of viral propagation. Overall, the biological data in the present work are consistent with the frequent identification of polymorphic stem-loop variants in nature and the progressive nature of infection in humans carrying these variants.
Nucleotide sequence accession numbers.
Representative variant p1 nucleotide sequences have been submitted to the GenBank database and assigned accession numbers AF293420 to AF293427.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Support for this work was provided by the Swiss National Science
Foundation (grants 3346-62092.99 and 33-61321.00) and by the
Santos-Suarez Foundation.

FOOTNOTES
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: CHUV, 1011 Lausanne, Switzerland. Phone: 41 21 314 0550. Fax: 41 21 314 1008. E-mail:
amalio.telenti{at}chuv.hospvd.ch.


REFERENCES
1 - Bally, F., R. Martinez, S. Peters, P. Sudre, and A. Telenti. 2000. Polymorphism of HIV-1 Gag p7/p1 and p1/p6 cleavage sites. Clinical significance and implications for resistance to protease inhibitors. AIDS Res. Hum. Retrovir. 16:1209-1213.[CrossRef][Medline]
2 - Bidou, L., G. Stahl, B. Grima, H. Liu, M. Cassan, and J.-P. Rousset. 1997. In vivo HIV-1 frameshift efficiency is directly related to the stability of the stem-loop stimulatory signal. RNA 3:1153-1158.[Abstract]
3 - Bleiber, G., M. Munoz, A. Ciuffi, P. Meylan, and A. Telenti. 2001. Individual contribution of protease and reverse transcriptase to infectivity, replication, and protein maturation of antiretroviral drug-resistant human immunodeficiency virus type 1. J. Virol. 75:3291-3300.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
4 - Chang, S.-Y., R. Sutthent, P. Auewarakul, C. Apichartpiyakul, M. Essex, and T.-H. Lee. 1999. Differential stability of the mRNA secondary structures in the frameshift site of various HIV type 1 viruses. AIDS Res. Hum. Retrovir. 15:1591-1596.[CrossRef][Medline]
5 - Davis, D. A., K. Yusa, L. A. Gillim, F. M. Newcomb, H. Mitsuya, and R. Yarchoan. 1999. Conserved cysteines of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 protease are involved in regulation of polyprotein processing and viral maturation of immature virions. J. Virol. 73:1156-1164.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
6 - Decottignies, A., A. M. Grant, J. W. Nichols, H. de Wet, D. B. McIntosh, and A. Goffeau. 1998. ATPase and multidrug transport activities of the overexpressed yeast ABC protein Yor1p. J. Biol. Chem. 273:12612-12622.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
7 - Dinman, J. D., and R. B. Wickner. 1992. Ribosomal frameshifting efficiency and gag/gag-pol ratio are critical for yeast M1 double-stranded RNA virus propagation. J. Virol. 66:3669-3676.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
8 - Felsenstein, K. M., and S. P. Goff. 1988. Expression of the gag-pol fusion protein of Moloney murine leukemia virus without gag protein does not induce virion formation or proteolytic processing. J. Virol. 62:2179-2182.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
9 - Gietz, D., A. St Jean, R. A. Woods, and R. H. Schiestl. 1992. Improved method for high efficiency transformation of intact yeast cells. Nucleic Acids Res. 20:1425.[Free Full Text]
10 - Honda, A., T. Nakamura, and S. Nishimura. 1995. RNA signals for translation frameshift: influence of stem size and slippery sequence. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 213:575-582.[CrossRef][Medline]
11 - Hung, M., P. Patel, S. Davis, and S. Green. 1998. Importance of ribosomal frameshift for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 particle assembly and replication. J. Virol. 72:4819-4824.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
12 - Jacks, T., M. D. Power, F. R. Masiarz, P. A. Luciw, P. J. Barr, and H. E. Varmus. 1988. Characterization of ribosomal frameshifting in HIV-1 gag-pol expression. Nature 331:280-283.[CrossRef][Medline]
13 - Jardine, D. K., D. P. Tyssen, and C. J. Birch. 2000. Effect of protease inhibitors on HIV-1 maturation and infectivity. Antiviral Res. 45:59-68.[CrossRef][Medline]
14 - Karacostas, V., E. J. Wolffe, K. Nagashima, M. A. Gonda, and B. Moss. 1993. Overexpression of the HIV-1 gag-pol polyprotein results in intracellular activation of HIV-1 protease and inhibition of assembly and budding of virus-like particles. Virology 193:661-671.[CrossRef][Medline]
15 - Lee, S. I., J. G. Umen, and H. E. Varmus. 1995. A genetic screen identifies cellular factors involved in retroviral -1 frameshifting. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 92:6587-6591.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
16 - Louis, J. M., E. M. Wondrak, A. R. Kimmel, P. T. Wingfield, and N. T. Nashed. 1999. Proteolytic processing of HIV-1 protease precursor, kinetics and mechanism. J. Biol. Chem. 274:23437-23442.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
17 - Park, J., and C. D. Morrow. 1991. Overexpression of the gag-pol precursor from human immunodeficiency virus type 1 proviral genomes results in efficient proteolytic processing in the absence of virion production. J. Virol. 65:5111-5117.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
18 - Parkin, N. T., M. Chamorro, and H. E. Varmus. 1992. Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gag-pol frameshifting is dependent on downstream mRNA secondary structure: demonstration by expression in vivo. J. Virol. 66:5147-5151.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
19 - Paulus, C., S. Hellebrand, U. Tessmer, H. Wolf, H.-G. Kräusslich, and R. Wagner. 1999. Competitive inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus type-1 protease by the Gag-Pol transframe protein. J. Biol. Chem. 274:21539-21543.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
20 - Reil, H., H. Kollmus, U. H. Weidle, and H. Hauser. 1993. A heptanucleotide sequence mediates ribosomal frameshifting in mammalian cells. J. Virol. 67:5579-5584.[Abstract/Free Full Text]
Journal of Virology, August 2002, p. 7868-7873, Vol. 76, No. 15
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.15.7868-7873.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Prado, J. G., Honeyborne, I., Brierley, I., Puertas, M. C., Martinez-Picado, J., Goulder, P. J. R.
(2009). Functional Consequences of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Escape from an HLA-B*13-Restricted CD8+ T-Cell Epitope in p1 Gag Protein. J. Virol.
83: 1018-1025
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Dulude, D., Theberge-Julien, G., Brakier-Gingras, L., Heveker, N.
(2008). Selection of peptides interfering with a ribosomal frameshift in the human immunodeficiency virus type 1. RNA
14: 981-991
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Girnary, R., King, L., Robinson, L., Elston, R., Brierley, I.
(2007). Structure-function analysis of the ribosomal frameshifting signal of two human immunodeficiency virus type 1 isolates with increased resistance to viral protease inhibitors. J. Gen. Virol.
88: 226-235
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
GAO, X., HAVECKER, E. R., BARANOV, P. V., ATKINS, J. F., VOYTAS, D. F.
(2003). Translational recoding signals between gag and pol in diverse LTR retrotransposons. RNA
9: 1422-1430
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
BARIL, M., DULUDE, D., GENDRON, K., LEMAY, G., BRAKIER-GINGRAS, L.
(2003). Efficiency of a programmed -1 ribosomal frameshift in the different subtypes of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 group M. RNA
9: 1246-1253
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Chen, C., Montelaro, R. C.
(2003). Characterization of RNA Elements That Regulate Gag-Pol Ribosomal Frameshifting in Equine Infectious Anemia Virus. J. Virol.
77: 10280-10287
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Staple, D. W., Butcher, S. E.
(2003). Solution structure of the HIV-1 frameshift inducing stem-loop RNA. Nucleic Acids Res
31: 4326-4331
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Brunelle, M.-N., Brakier-Gingras, L., Lemay, G.
(2003). Replacement of Murine Leukemia Virus Readthrough Mechanism by Human Immunodeficiency Virus Frameshift Allows Synthesis of Viral Proteins and Virus Replication. J. Virol.
77: 3345-3350
[Abstract]
[Full Text]
-
Hill, M. K., Shehu-Xhilaga, M., Crowe, S. M., Mak, J.
(2002). Proline Residues within Spacer Peptide p1 Are Important for Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infectivity, Protein Processing, and Genomic RNA Dimer Stability. J. Virol.
76: 11245-11253
[Abstract]
[Full Text]