Interactions of cellular proteins involved in the transcriptional regulation of the human immunodeficiency virus.

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a human retrovirus which is the etiologic agent of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. To study the cellular factors involved in the transcriptional regulation of this virus, we performed DNase I footprinting of the viral LTR using partially purified HeLa cell extracts. Five regions of the viral LTR appear critical for DNA binding of cellular proteins. These include the negative regulatory, enhancer, SP1, TATA and untranslated regions. Deletion mutagenesis of these binding domains has significant effects on the basal level of transcription and the ability to be induced by the viral tat protein. Mutations of either the negative regulatory or untranslated regions affect factor binding to the enhancer region. In addition, oligonucleotides complementary to several of the binding domains specifically compete for factor binding. These results suggest that interactions between several distinct cellular proteins are required for HIV transcriptional regulation.