NMR and biochemical characterization of recombinant human tRNA(Lys)3 expressed in Escherichia coli: identification of posttranscriptional nucleotide modifications required for efficient initiation of HIV-1 reverse transcription.

Reverse transcription of HIV-1 viral RNA uses human tRNA(Lys)3 as a primer. Some of the modified nucleotides carried by this tRNA must play a key role in the initiation of this process, because unmodified tRNA produced in vitro is only marginally active as primer. To provide a better understanding of the contribution of base modifications in the initiation complex, we have designed a recombinant system that allows tRNA(Lys)3 expression in Escherichia coli. Because of their high level of overexpression, some modifications are incorporated at substoichiometric levels. We have purified the two major recombinant tRNA(Lys)3 subspecies, and their modified nucleotide contents have been characterized by a combination of NMR and biochemical techniques. Both species carry psis, Ds, T, t6A, and m7G. Differences are observed at position 34, within the anticodon. One fraction lacks the 5-methylaminomethyl group, whereas the other lacks the 2-thio group. Although the s2U34-containing recombinant tRNA is a less efficient primer, it presents most of the characteristics of the mammalian tRNA. On the other hand, the mnm5U34-containing tRNA has a strongly reduced activity. Our results demonstrate that the modifications that are absent in E. coli (m2G10, psi27, m5C48, m5C49, and m1A58) as well as the mnm5 group at position 34 are dispensable for initiation of reverse transcription. In contrast, the 2-thio group at position 34 seems to play an important part in this process

Extensive cis-regulatory variation robust to environmental perturbation in Arabidopsis

cis- and trans-acting factors affect gene expression and responses to environmental conditions. However, for most plant systems, we lack a comprehensive map of these factors and their interaction with environmental variation. Here, we examined allele-specific expression (ASE) in an F1 hybrid to study how alleles from two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions affect gene expression. To investigate the effect of the environment, we used drought stress and developed a variance component model to estimate the combined genetic contributions of cis- and trans-regulatory polymorphisms, environmental factors, and their interactions. We quantified ASE for 11,003 genes, identifying 3318 genes with consistent ASE in control and stress conditions, demonstrating that cis-acting genetic effects are essentially robust to changes in the environment. Moreover, we found 1618 genes with genotype x environment (GxE) interactions, mostly cis x E interactions with magnitude changes in ASE. We found fewer trans x E interactions, but these effects were relatively less robust across conditions, showing more changes in the direction of the effect between environments; this confirms that trans-regulation plays an important role in the response to environmental conditions. Our data provide a detailed map of cis- and trans-regulation and GxE interactions in A. thaliana, laying the ground for mechanistic investigations and studies in other plants and environments

Functional and structural characterization of 2-amino-4-phenylthiazole inhibitors of the HIV-1 nucleocapsid protein with antiviral activity.

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