Extensive mutagenesis of the conserved box E motif in duck hepatitis B virus P protein reveals multiple functions in replication and a common structure with the primer grip in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase.

ABSTRACT: Hepadnaviruses, including the pathogenic hepatitis B virus (HBV), replicate their small DNA genomes through protein-primed reverse transcription, mediated by the terminal protein (TP) domain in their P proteins and an RNA stem-loop, ε, on the pregenomic RNA (pgRNA). No direct structural data are available for P proteins, but their reverse transcriptase (RT) domains contain motifs that are conserved in all RTs (box A to box G), implying a similar architecture; however, experimental support for this notion is limited. Exploiting assays available for duck HBV (DHBV) but not the HBV P protein, we assessed the functional consequences of numerous mutations in box E, which forms the DNA primer grip in human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RT. This substructure coordinates primer 3'-end posi

SUBMITTER: Wang YX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3393573 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature