Host cell factors stimulate HIV-1 transcription by antagonizing substrate-binding function of Siah1 ubiquitin ligase to stabilize transcription elongation factor ELL2.

The Siah1 and Siah2 ubiquitin ligases are implicated in diverse biological processes ranging from cellular stress responses, signaling to transcriptional regulation. A key substrate of Siah1 is ELL2, which undergoes proteolysis upon polyubiquitination. ELL2 stimulates transcriptional elongation and is a subunit of the Super Elongation Complex (SEC) essential for HIV-1 transactivation. Previously, multiple transcriptional and post-translational mechanisms are reported to control Siah's expression and activity. Here we show that the activity of Siah1/2 can also be suppressed by host cell factor 1 (HCF1), and the hitherto poorly characterized HCF2, which themselves are not degraded but can bind and block the substrate-binding domain (SBD) of Siah1/2 to prevent their autoubiquitination and trans-ubiquitination of downstream targets including ELL2. This effect stabilizes ELL2 and enhances the ELL2-SEC formation for robust HIV-1 transactivation. Thus, our study not only identifies HCF1/2 as novel activators of HIV-1 transcription through inhibiting Siah1 to stabilize ELL2, but also reveals the SBD of Siah1/2 as a previously unrecognized new target for HCF1/2 to exert this inhibition.