The y271 and i274 amino acids in reverse transcriptase of human immunodeficiency virus-1 are critical to protein stability.

ABSTRACT: Reverse transcriptase (RT) of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 plays a key role in initiating viral replication and is an important target for developing anti-HIV drugs. Our previous study showed that two mutations (Y271A and I274A) in the turn RT (Gln(269)-Arg(277)) abrogated viral replication, but the replication capacity and RT activity was discordant. In this study, we further investigated why alanine substitutions at these two sites would affect viral replication. We found that both RT activity and RT protein were almost undetectable in viral particles of these two mutants, although the Pr160(gag-pol) mutants were properly expressed, transported and incorporated. Using protease inhibition assay, we demonstrated a correlation between the degradation of the RT mutants and the activi

SUBMITTER: Zhang HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2701634 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature