4th International AIDS Conference Stockholm, Sweden. — June 12-16, 1988

Int Conf AIDS. 1988 Jun 12-16;4:1.116 (abstract no. 1015)

Klaus Strehel and Malcolm A. Martin
NIAID, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA

OBJECTIVE: Functional analysis of the HIV-1 "A" (sor) gene product.

METHODS: We recently demonstrated that the elimination of the HIV-1 "A" gene from an infectious molecular clone markedly reduces the infectivity of virions produced in a transient expression system (Strebel et al., Nature. 1987 Aug 20-26;328(6132):728-30). We subsequently studied the role of the "A" gene product by analyzing individual steps in the viral replication cycle using standard biochemical, immunological and molecular biological techniques.

RESULTS: Our experiments show that the elimination of "A" does not affect the env/CD4 interaction. We provide evidence that "A" has no influence on the efficiency of cDNA synthesis in vitro and that initiation occurs correctly at the tRNA primer binding site. We further demonstrate that viral particles with a morphology similar to wildtype particles are being released from transfected cells containing similar amounts of reverse transcriptase as well as unspliced RNA. We will present data concerning the localization of "A" and speculate about the function of "A" in the post-translational modification of viral proteins.

CONCLUSIONS: "A" has an important role in the production of infectious virions. Unlike the HIV-1 tat or art gene products, however, the "A" (sor) protein--does not seem to have a function in the regulation of gene expression. Several lines of evidence suggest that "A" acts at the post-translational level and is possibly involved in the modification of some viral proteins.

880612
1015

Copyright © 1988 - International AIDS Society (IAS). Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the IAS.