Conserved sequences in the carboxyl terminus of integrase that are essential for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 replication.

We have previously identified a residue in the carboxyl terminus of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 integrase (HIV-1 IN), W-235, the requirement for which is only revealed in viral assays for integrase function (P. M. Cannon, W. Wilson, E. Byles, S. M. Kingsman, and A. J. Kingsman, J. Virol. 68:4768-4775, 1994). Our further analysis of this region of retroviral IN has now identified several sequence motifs which are conserved in all the retroviruses we examined, apart from human spumaretrovirus. We have made mutations within these motifs in HIV-1 IN and examined their phenotypes when reintroduced into an infectious proviral clone. The deleterious effects of several of these mutations demonstrate the importance of these regions for IN function in vivo. We observed a further discrepancy, at a motif that is only conserved in the lentiviruses, in the ability of mutants to function in in vitro and in vivo assays. Substitutions both in this region and at W-235 abolish HIV-1 infectivity but do not affect particle production, morphology, reverse transcription, or nuclear import in T-cell lines. Taken together with the in vitro data suggesting that neither of these residues is directly involved in the catalytic reactions of IN, it seems likely that we have identified regions of IN that are essential for interactions with other components of the integration machinery.