1st National Conference Human Retroviruses and Related Infections Washington, DC - December 12-16, 1993

Natl Conf Hum Retrovir Relat Infect 1993 Dec 12-16;1: (abstract no. 13)

Geraghty RJ¹, Callahan M¹, Harper W², Panganiban AT^1
1University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI; ²Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX

In addition to the gag, pol and env genes common to all retroviruses, HIV-1 expresses a group of "accessory" genes. One of these accessory genes is vpu. The vpu gene is expressed from the same, singly spliced mRNA as the env gene and its gene product is a 16 Kd phosphoprotein that has been observed to function in two separate fashions. First, Vpu disrupts Env-gp-CD4 complexes resulting in degradation of CD4. Second, Vpu promotes eggression of viral particles from cells in a manner that does not involve the Env-gp or CD4. We are interested in determining the role of Vpu in particle release. Specifically, is Vpu interacting directly or indirectly with viral proteins, with cellular proteins, or with both to promote the efficient release of viral particles? We have found that Vpu is necessary for virus release from a human cell line and dispensable for virus release from a simian cell line. This observation suggests that Vpu may function via an interaction with a cellular factor. In an attempt to identify cellular factors that may interact with Vpu, we used the yeast GAL4 transcriptional activation system to detect an interaction between a Vpu-GAL4 fusion protein and the activator domain of GAL4 fused to proteins derived from a human lymphocyte cDNA expression library. Six cDNAs encode protein that apparently interact with Vpu were obtained from this screening procedure. The nature of the gene products produced from these cDNAs, the potential interaction between these gene products and Vpu, and the potential interaction of Vpu with viral proteins is currently under investigation.

Keywords: Antigens, CD4, HIV Infections, HIV Seropositivity, HIV-1, Humans, Viral Proteins, Virus Diseases, immunology

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1993-12-12
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