Andréola Marie-Line, Litvak Simon
Laboratoire Microbiologie Cellulaire et Moléculaire et Pathogénicité, UMR 5234-CNRS, Université Bordeaux Segalen, 146 Rue Leo Saignat, SFR TransBioMed, 33076 Bordeaux, France.
J Biomed Biotechnol. 2012;2012:549020. doi: 10.1155/2012/549020. Epub 2012 Jun 17.
Despite being simple eukaryotic organisms, the yeasts Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe have been widely used as a model to study human pathologies and the replication of human, animal, and plant viruses, as well as the function of individual viral proteins. The complete genome of S. cerevisiae was the first of eukaryotic origin to be sequenced and contains about 6,000 genes. More than 75% of the genes have an assigned function, while more than 40% share conserved sequences with known or predicted human genes. This strong homology has allowed the function of human orthologs to be unveiled starting from the data obtained in yeast. RNA plant viruses were the first to be studied in yeast. In this paper, we focus on the use of the yeast model to study the function of the proteins of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and the search for its cellular partners. This human retrovirus is the cause of AIDS. The WHO estimates that there are 33.4 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS, with 2.7 million new HIV infections per year and 2.0 million annual deaths due to AIDS. Current therapy is able to control the disease but there is no permanent cure or a vaccine. By using yeast, it is possible to dissect the function of some HIV-1 proteins and discover new cellular factors common to this simple cell and humans that may become potential therapeutic targets, leading to a long-lasting treatment for AIDS.
尽管酿酒酵母和粟酒裂殖酵母是简单的真核生物，但它们已被广泛用作研究人类病理学、人类、动物和植物病毒复制以及单个病毒蛋白功能的模型。酿酒酵母的完整基因组是第一个被测序的真核生物基因组，包含约6000个基因。超过75%的基因具有确定的功能，而超过40%的基因与已知或预测的人类基因具有保守序列。这种高度同源性使得从酵母中获得的数据开始揭示人类直系同源基因的功能成为可能。RNA植物病毒是最早在酵母中进行研究的。在本文中，我们重点关注利用酵母模型研究1型人类免疫缺陷病毒（HIV-1）蛋白的功能及其细胞伴侣的寻找。这种人类逆转录病毒是艾滋病的病因。世界卫生组织估计，全球有3340万人感染艾滋病毒/艾滋病，每年有270万新的艾滋病毒感染病例，每年有200万人死于艾滋病。目前的治疗方法能够控制疾病，但没有永久性的治愈方法或疫苗。通过使用酵母，可以剖析一些HIV-1蛋白的功能，并发现这种简单细胞与人类共有的新细胞因子，这些因子可能成为潜在的治疗靶点，从而实现对艾滋病的长期治疗。
