Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.
Science. 2011 Oct 14;334(6053):242-5. doi: 10.1126/science.1210460.
The 5'-leader of the HIV-1 genome regulates multiple functions during viral replication via mechanisms that have yet to be established. We developed a nuclear magnetic resonance approach that enabled direct detection of structural elements within the intact leader (712-nucleotide dimer) that are critical for genome packaging. Residues spanning the gag start codon (AUG) form a hairpin in the monomeric leader and base pair with residues of the unique-5' region (U5) in the dimer. U5:AUG formation promotes dimerization by displacing and exposing a dimer-promoting hairpin and enhances binding by the nucleocapsid (NC) protein, which is the cognate domain of the viral Gag polyprotein that directs packaging. Our findings support a packaging mechanism in which translation, dimerization, NC binding, and packaging are regulated by a common RNA structural switch.
HIV-1 基因组的 5'-leader 通过尚未确定的机制调节病毒复制过程中的多种功能。我们开发了一种核磁共振方法,能够直接检测完整的 leader(712 个核苷酸二聚体)中的结构元件,这些结构元件对于基因组包装至关重要。跨越 gag 起始密码子(AUG)的残基在单体 leader 中形成发夹结构,并与二聚体中的独特 5' 区域(U5)的残基形成碱基对。U5:AUG 的形成通过置换和暴露二聚体促进发夹结构,并增强核衣壳(NC)蛋白的结合,NC 蛋白是指导包装的病毒 Gag 多蛋白的同源结构域。我们的发现支持一种包装机制,其中翻译、二聚化、NC 结合和包装受一个共同的 RNA 结构开关调节。