Mutations in the V3 stem versus the V3 crown and C4 region have different effects on the binding and fusion steps of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 gp120 interaction with the CCR5 coreceptor.

The current model for HIV-1 envelope-coreceptor interaction depicts the V3 stem and bridging sheet binding to the CCR5 N-terminus while the V3 crown interacts with the second extracellular loop, which is the coreceptor domain that appears to be relatively more important for fusion and infection. Our prediction based on this model is that mutations in the V3 crown might consequently have more effects on cell-cell fusion and virus entry than mutations introduced in the V3 stem and C4 region. We performed alanine-scanning of the V3 loop and selected C4 residues in the JRFL envelope and tested the capacity of the resulting mutants for CCR5 binding, cell-cell fusion, and virus infection. Our cross comparison analysis revealed that residues in C4 and in both the V3 stem and crown were important for CCR5 binding of gp120 subunits. Contrary to our prediction, mutations in the V3 crown had less effect on membrane fusion than mutations in the V3 stem. The V3 stem thus appears to be the most important region for CCR5 utilization since it affected both coreceptor binding and subsequent fusion and viral entry. Our data raises the possibility that some residues in the V3 crown and in C4 may play distinct roles in the binding and fusion steps of envelope-coreceptor interaction.