Study On Interactions Of Two Pairs Of HIV-1Proteins

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, AIDS) has become a serious threat to human health. HIV is the pathogen responsible for AIDS. It is very important to study the interactions among HIV proteins and their interactions with host proteins for better understanding the infection mechanism and life cycle of HIV.Our previouslyresearch systematically studied the binaryinteractions between HIV-1encoded proteins by yeast two-hybrid assay. Binaryinteractions between10pairs of HIV-1proteins were revealed, including the binaryinteractions between4pairs of HIV-1proteins found for the first time. In this study, we further studied two of these interactions including Vpu-gp120and gp41-integrase.The Interaction between Vpu and the viral envelope glycoprotein gp120, was firstly-tested by co-immunoprecipitation experiments under physiological conditions, verifying the results from yeast two-hybrid assay. Then, a series of shortened and deletion muta-tions of Vpu gene were conducted, and incorporated into the yeast two-hybrid system. By using yeast two-hybrid assay, the72-81amino acids sequence of Vpu was found to be responsible for its interaction with gp120. A series of shortened and deletion mutations of gp41gene were also conducted, and incorporated into the yeast two-hybrid system. With yeast two-hybrid assay, the84-100amino acids sequence was found to be the key sequence for gp41interacting with integrase.In conclusion, the interaction between Vpu and gp120was verified under physiolo-gical conditions. More importantly, some key interaction sites were revealed for interact-ions of Vpu-gp120and gp41-integrase. These findings are very helpful to understand the function of these protein interactions during HIV-1infection. The study also provides important data for unstanding the HIV-1biology.