Disruption of a salt bridge between Asp 488 and Lys 465 in HIV-1 reverse transcriptase alters its proteolytic processing and polymerase activity.

The conserved aspartic acid residue 488 in the RNase H domain of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) was mutated to alanine. RT was expressed in Escherichia coli alone or with the entire pol-gene polyprotein consisting of proteinase, RT, and integrase and processed by the HIV-1 proteinase in the bacterial cell. Expression of mutant RT together with the proteinase resulted in an overproduction of RT p51 vs p66. The mutation also altered the conformation of the RT p66/p51 heterodimer as shown by the loss of binding of monoclonal antibodies to mutant RT in ELISA. Crystallographic data shows that a salt bridge exists between Asp 488 and Lys 465 of RNase H which stabilizes the uncleavable form of RT p66, and that substitution of Asp for Ala would prevent the formation of this salt bridge. Our results indicate that disruption of this salt bridge through mutation of Asp 488 interferes with the conformational changes that regulate the limited processing of p66 to 51 by the virus proteinase. Homology data suggest that such a bridge may be present in other lentiviruses. The mutation introduced caused a moderate decrease in both the RNase H activity and the polymerase activity of RT, indicating that the proper folding of the RNase H domain of RT is necessary to achieve full polymerase activity.