Viral and Cellular Requirements for the Nuclear Entry of Retroviral Preintegration Nucleoprotein Complexes

Retroviruses integrate their reverse transcribed genomes into host cell chromosomes as an obligate step in virus replication. The nuclear envelope separates the chromosomes from the cell cytoplasm during interphase, and different retroviral groups deal with this physical barrier in different ways. Gammaretroviruses are dependent on the passage of target cells through mitosis, where they are believed to access chromosomes when the nuclear envelope dissolves for cell division. Contrastingly, lentiviruses such as HIV-1 infect non-dividing cells, and are believed to enter the nucleus by passing through the nuclear pore complex. While numerous virally encoded elements have been proposed to be involved in HIV-1 nuclear import, recent evidence has highlighted the importance of HIV-1 capsid. Furthermore, capsid was found to be responsible for the viral requirement of various nuclear transport proteins, including transportin 3 and nucleoporins NUP153 and NUP358, during infection. In this review, we describe our current understanding of retroviral nuclear import, with emphasis on recent developments on the role of the HIV-1 capsid protein

The Lentiviral Integrase Binding Protein LEDGF/p75 and HIV-1 Replication

Retroviral replication proceeds through a stable proviral DNA intermediate, and numerous host cell factors have been implicated in its formation. In particular, recent results have highlighted an important role for the integrase-interactor lens epithelium-derived growth factor (LEDGF)/p75 in lentiviral integration. Cells engineered to over-express fragments of LEDGF/p75 containing its integrase-binding domain but lacking determinants essential for chromatin association are refractory to HIV-1 infection. Furthermore, both the levels of HIV-1 integration and the genomic distribution of the resultant proviruses are significantly perturbed in cells devoid of endogenous LEDGF/p75 protein. A strong bias towards integration along transcription units is a characteristic feature of lentiviruses. In the absence of LEDGF/p75, HIV-1 in large part loses that preference, displaying concomitant integration surges in the vicinities of CpG islands and gene promoter regions, elements naturally targeted by other types of retroviruses. Together, these findings highlight that LEDGF/p75 is an important albeit not strictly essential cofactor of lentiviral DNA integration, and solidify a role for chromatin-associated LEDGF/p75 as a receptor for lentiviral preintegration complexes. By now one of the best characterized virus–host interactions, the integrase-LEDGF/p75 interface opens a range of opportunities for lentiviral vector targeting for gene therapy applications as well as for the development of novel classes of antiretroviral drugs

HIV-1 incorporates and proteolytically processes human NDR1 and NDR2 serine-threonine kinases

AbstractMammalian genomes encode two related serine-threonine kinases, nuclear Dbf2 related (NDR)1 and NDR2, which are homologous to the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Dbf2 kinase. Recently, a yeast genetic screen implicated the Dbf2 kinase in Ty1 retrotransposition. Since several virion-incorporated kinases regulate the infectivity of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), we speculated that the human NDR1 and NDR2 kinases might play a role in the HIV-1 life cycle. Here we show that the NDR1 and NDR2 kinases were incorporated into HIV-1 particles. Furthermore, NDR1 and NDR2 were cleaved by the HIV-1 protease (PR), both within virions and within producer cells. Truncation at the PR cleavage site altered NDR2 subcellular localization and inhibited NDR1 and NDR2 enzymatic activity. These studies identify two new virion-associated host cell enzymes and suggest a novel mechanism by which HIV-1 alters the intracellular environment of human cells

Nucleoporin NUP153 Phenylalanine-Glycine Motifs Engage a Common Binding Pocket within the HIV-1 Capsid Protein to Mediate Lentiviral Infectivity

Lentiviruses can infect non-dividing cells, and various cellular transport proteins provide crucial functions for lentiviral nuclear entry and integration. We previously showed that the viral capsid (CA) protein mediated the dependency on cellular nucleoporin (NUP) 153 during HIV-1 infection, and now demonstrate a direct interaction between the CA N-terminal domain and the phenylalanine-glycine (FG)-repeat enriched NUP153 C-terminal domain (NUP153C). NUP153C fused to the effector domains of the rhesus Trim5α restriction factor (Trim-NUP153C) potently restricted HIV-1, providing an intracellular readout for the NUP153C-CA interaction during retroviral infection. Primate lentiviruses and equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) bound NUP153C under these conditions, results that correlated with direct binding between purified proteins in vitro. These binding phenotypes moreover correlated with the requirement for endogenous NUP153 protein during virus infection. Mutagenesis experiments concordantly identified NUP153C and CA residues important for binding and lentiviral infectivity. Different FG motifs within NUP153C mediated binding to HIV-1 versus EIAV capsids. HIV-1 CA binding mapped to residues that line the common alpha helix 3/4 hydrophobic pocket that also mediates binding to the small molecule PF-3450074 (PF74) inhibitor and cleavage and polyadenylation specific factor 6 (CPSF6) protein, with Asn57 (Asp58 in EIAV) playing a particularly important role. PF74 and CPSF6 accordingly each competed with NUP153C for binding to the HIV-1 CA pocket, and significantly higher concentrations of PF74 were needed to inhibit HIV-1 infection in the face of Trim-NUP153C expression or NUP153 knockdown. Correlation between CA mutant viral cell cycle and NUP153 dependencies moreover indicates that the NUP153C-CA interaction underlies the ability of HIV-1 to infect non-dividing cells. Our results highlight similar mechanisms of binding for disparate host factors to the same region of HIV-1 CA during viral ingress. We conclude that a subset of lentiviral CA proteins directly engage FG-motifs present on NUP153 to affect viral nuclear import

Structure-based mutagenesis of the integrase-LEDGF/p75 interface uncouples a strict correlation between in vitro protein binding and HIV-1 fitness

AbstractLEDGF/p75 binding-defective IN mutant viruses were previously characterized as replication-defective, yet RNAi did not reveal an essential role for the host factor in HIV-1 replication. Correlative analyses of protein binding and viral fitness were expanded here by targeting 12 residues at the IN-LEDGF/p75 binding interface. Whereas many of the resultant viruses were defective, the majority of the INs displayed wild-type in vitro integration activities. Though an overall trend of parallel loss of LEDGF/p75 binding and HIV-1 infectivity was observed, a strict correlation was not. His-tagged INA128Q, derived from a phenotypically wild-type virus, failed to pull-down LEDGF/p75, but INA128Q was effectively recovered in a reciprocal GST pull-down assay. Under these conditions, INH171A, also derived from a phenotypically wild-type virus, interacted less efficiently than a previously described interaction-defective mutant, INQ168A. Thus, the relative affinity of the in vitro IN-LEDGF/p75 interaction is not a universal predictor of IN mutant viral fitness

Engineered Hyperactive Integrase for Concerted HIV-1 DNA Integration

The DNA cutting and joining reactions of HIV-1 integration are catalyzed by integrase (IN), a viral protein that functions as a tetramer bridging the two viral DNA ends (intasome). Two major obstacles for biochemical and structural studies of HIV-1 intasomes are 1) the low efficiency of assembly with oligonucleotide DNA substrates, and 2) the non-specific aggregation of both intasomes and free IN in the reaction mixture. By fusing IN with a small non-specific DNA binding protein, Sulfolobus solfataricus chromosomal protein Sso7d (PDB: 1BNZ), we have engineered a highly soluble and hyperactive IN. Unlike wild-type IN, it efficiently catalyzes intasome assembly and concerted integration with oligonucleotide DNA substrates. The fusion IN protein also functions to integrate viral reverse transcripts during HIV-infection. The hyperactive HIV-1 IN may assist in facilitating future biochemical and structural studies of HIV-1 intasomes. Understanding the mechanistic basis of the Sso7d-IN fusion protein could provide insight into the factors that have hindered biophysical studies of wild-type HIV-1 IN and intasomes

Molecular mechanisms of retroviral integration site selection

Retroviral replication proceeds through an obligate integrated DNA provirus, making retroviral vectors attractive vehicles for human gene-therapy. Though most of the host cell genome is available for integration, the process of integration site selection is not random. Retroviruses differ in their choice of chromatin-associated features and also prefer particular nucleotide sequences at the point of insertion. Lentiviruses including HIV-1 preferentially integrate within the bodies of active genes, whereas the prototypical gammaretrovirus Moloney murine leukemia virus (MoMLV) favors strong enhancers and active gene promoter regions. Integration is catalyzed by the viral integrase protein, and recent research has demonstrated that HIV-1 and MoMLV targeting preferences are in large part guided by integrase-interacting host factors (LEDGF/p75 for HIV-1 and BET proteins for MoMLV) that tether viral intasomes to chromatin. In each case, the selectivity of epigenetic marks on histones recognized by the protein tether helps to determine the integration distribution. In contrast, nucleotide preferences at integration sites seem to be governed by the ability for the integrase protein to locally bend the DNA duplex for pairwise insertion of the viral DNA ends. We discuss approaches to alter integration site selection that could potentially improve the safety of retroviral vectors in the clinic

Biochemical Characterization of Novel Retroviral Integrase Proteins

Integrase is an essential retroviral enzyme, catalyzing the stable integration of reverse transcribed DNA into cellular DNA. Several aspects of the integration mechanism, including the length of host DNA sequence duplication flanking the integrated provirus, which can be from 4 to 6 bp, and the nucleotide preferences at the site of integration, are thought to cluster among the different retroviral genera. To date only the spumavirus prototype foamy virus integrase has provided diffractable crystals of integrase-DNA complexes, revealing unprecedented details on the molecular mechanisms of DNA integration. Here, we characterize five previously unstudied integrase proteins, including those derived from the alpharetrovirus lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV), betaretroviruses Jaagsiekte sheep retrovirus (JSRV), and mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), epsilonretrovirus walleye dermal sarcoma virus (WDSV), and gammaretrovirus reticuloendotheliosis virus strain A (Rev-A) to identify potential novel structural biology candidates. Integrase expressed in bacterial cells was analyzed for solubility, stability during purification, and, once purified, 3′ processing and DNA strand transfer activities in vitro. We show that while we were unable to extract or purify accountable amounts of WDSV, JRSV, or LPDV integrase, purified MMTV and Rev-A integrase each preferentially support the concerted integration of two viral DNA ends into target DNA. The sequencing of concerted Rev-A integration products indicates high fidelity cleavage of target DNA strands separated by 5 bp during integration, which contrasts with the 4 bp duplication generated by a separate gammaretrovirus, the Moloney murine leukemia virus (MLV). By comparing Rev-A in vitro integration sites to those generated by MLV in cells, we concordantly conclude that the spacing of target DNA cleavage is more evolutionarily flexible than are the target DNA base contacts made by integrase during integration. Given their desirable concerted DNA integration profiles, Rev-A and MMTV integrase proteins have been earmarked for structural biology studies

Chromatinized templates reveal the requirement for the LEDGF/p75 PWWP domain during HIV-1 integration in vitro

Integration is an essential step in the retroviral lifecycle, and the lentiviral integrase binding protein lens epithelium-derived growth factor (LEDGF)/p75 plays a crucial role during human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) cDNA integration. In vitro, LEDGF/p75 stimulates HIV-1 integrase activity into naked target DNAs. Here, we demonstrate that this chromatin-associated protein also stimulates HIV-1 integration into reconstituted polynucleosome templates. Activation of integration depended on the LEDGF/p75-integrase interaction with either type of template. A differential requirement for the dominant DNA and chromatin-binding elements of LEDGF/p75 was however observed when using naked DNA versus polynucleosomes. With naked DNA, the complete removal of these N-terminal elements was required to abate cofactor function. With polynucleosomes, activation mainly depended on the PWWP domain, and to a lesser extent on nearby AT-hook DNA-binding motifs. GST pull-down assays furthermore revealed a role for the PWWP domain in binding to nucleosomes. These results are completely consistent with recent ex vivo studies that characterized the PWWP and integrase-binding domains of LEDGF/p75 as crucial for restoring HIV-1 infection to LEDGF-depleted cells. Our studies therefore establish novel in vitro conditions, highlighting chromatinized DNA as target acceptor templates, for physiologically relevant studies of LEDGF/p75 in lentiviral cDNA integration

The SET Complex Acts as a Barrier to Autointegration of HIV-1

Retroviruses and retrotransposons are vulnerable to a suicidal pathway known as autointegration, which occurs when the 3′-ends of the reverse transcript are activated by integrase and then attack sites within the viral DNA. Retroelements have diverse strategies for suppressing autointegration, but how HIV-1 protects itself from autointegration is not well-understood. Here we show that knocking down any of the components of the SET complex, an endoplasmic reticulum-associated complex that contains 3 DNases (the base excision repair endonuclease APE1, 5′-3′ exonuclease TREX1, and endonuclease NM23-H1), inhibits HIV-1 and HIV-2/SIV, but not MLV or ASV, infection. Inhibition occurs at a step in the viral life cycle after reverse transcription but before chromosomal integration. Antibodies to SET complex proteins capture HIV-1 DNA in the cytoplasm, suggesting a direct interaction between the SET complex and the HIV preintegration complex. Cloning of HIV integration sites in cells with knocked down SET complex components revealed an increase in autointegration, which was verified using a novel semi-quantitative nested PCR assay to detect autointegrants. When SET complex proteins are knocked down, autointegration increases 2–3–fold and chromosomal integration correspondingly decreases ∼3-fold. Therefore, the SET complex facilitates HIV-1 infection by preventing suicidal autointegration