Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy studies of human immunodeficiency virus

Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy combines the ability to observe biological processes beyond the diffraction limit of conventional light microscopy with all advantages of the fluorescence readout such ...

Authors: Jakub Chojnacki and Christian Eggeling

Obituary: Remembering Professor David Cooper

Authors: Stuart Turville and Anthony Kelleher

HIV-1 Tat phosphorylation on Ser-16 residue modulates HIV-1 transcription

HIV-1 transcription activator protein Tat is phosphorylated in vitro by CDK2 and DNA-PK on Ser-16 residue and by PKR on Tat Ser-46 residue. Here we analyzed Tat phosphorylation in cultured cells and its functi...

Authors: Andrey Ivanov, Xionghao Lin, Tatiana Ammosova, Andrey V. Ilatovskiy, Namita Kumari, Hatajai Lassiter, Nowah Afangbedji, Xiaomei Niu, Michael G. Petukhov and Sergei Nekhai

Efficacies of Cabotegravir and Bictegravir against drug-resistant HIV-1 integrase mutants

Integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTIs) are the class of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs most recently approved by the FDA for the treatment of HIV-1 infections. INSTIs block the strand transfer reaction cata...

Authors: Steven J. Smith, Xue Zhi Zhao, Terrence R. Burke Jr. and Stephen H. Hughes

Replacement of feline foamy virus bet by feline immunodeficiency virus vif yields replicative virus with novel vaccine candidate potential

Hosts are able to restrict viral replication to contain virus spread before adaptive immunity is fully initiated. Many viruses have acquired genes directly counteracting intrinsic restriction mechanisms. This ...

Authors: Carmen Ledesma-Feliciano, Sarah Hagen, Ryan Troyer, Xin Zheng, Esther Musselman, Dragana Slavkovic Lukic, Ann-Mareen Franke, Daniel Maeda, Jörg Zielonka, Carsten Münk, Guochao Wei, Sue VandeWoude and Martin Löchelt

HIV latency reversing agents act through Tat post translational modifications

Different classes of latency reversing agents (LRAs) are being evaluated to measure their effects in reactivating HIV replication from latently infected cells. A limited number of studies have demonstrated add...

Authors: Georges Khoury, Talia M. Mota, Shuang Li, Carolin Tumpach, Michelle Y. Lee, Jonathan Jacobson, Leigh Harty, Jenny L. Anderson, Sharon R. Lewin and Damian F. J. Purcell

Reconstruction of a replication-competent ancestral murine endogenous retrovirus-L

About 10% of the mouse genome is composed of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) that represent a molecular fossil record of past retroviral infections. One such retrovirus, murine ERV-L (MuERV-L) is an env-deficient ...

Authors: Daniel Blanco-Melo, Robert J. Gifford and Paul D. Bieniasz

CLIP-related methodologies and their application to retrovirology

Virtually every step of HIV-1 replication and numerous cellular antiviral defense mechanisms are regulated by the binding of a viral or cellular RNA-binding protein (RBP) to distinct sequence or structural ele...

Authors: Paul D. Bieniasz and Sebla B. Kutluay

The HTLV-1 oncoprotein Tax is modified by the ubiquitin related modifier 1 (Urm1)

Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is an aggressive malignancy secondary to chronic human T-cell lymphotropic virus 1 infection, triggered by the virally encoded oncoprotein Tax. The transforming activity an...

Authors: Rita Hleihel, Behzad Khoshnood, Ingrid Dacklin, Hayssam Omran, Carine Mouawad, Zeina Dassouki, Marwan El-Sabban, Margret Shirinian, Caroline Grabbe and Ali Bazarbachi

HIV-1 protease with leucine zipper fused at N-terminus exhibits enhanced linker amino acid-dependent activity

HIV-1 protease (PR) activation is triggered by Gag-Pol dimerization. Premature PR activation results in reduced virion yields due to enhanced Gag cleavage. A p6* transframe peptide located directly upstream of...

Authors: Fu-Hsien Yu and Chin-Tien Wang

New World feline APOBEC3 potently controls inter-genus lentiviral transmission

The apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme catalytic polypeptide-like 3 (APOBEC3; A3) gene family appears only in mammalian genomes. Some A3 proteins can be incorporated into progeny virions and inhibit lentivir...

Authors: Yoriyuki Konno, Shumpei Nagaoka, Izumi Kimura, Keisuke Yamamoto, Yumiko Kagawa, Ryuichi Kumata, Hirofumi Aso, Mahoko Takahashi Ueda, So Nakagawa, Tomoko Kobayashi, Yoshio Koyanagi and Kei Sato

Total HIV DNA: a global marker of HIV persistence

Among the different markers of HIV persistence in infected cells, total HIV DNA is to date the most widely used. It allows an overall quantification of all viral forms of HIV DNA in infected cells, each playin...

Authors: Christine Rouzioux and Véronique Avettand-Fenoël

Six-helix bundle completion in the distal C-terminal heptad repeat region of gp41 is required for efficient human immunodeficiency virus type 1 infection

The native pre-fusion structure of gp120/gp41 complex of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 was recently revealed. In the model, the helices of gp41 (α6, α7, α8, and α9) form a four-helix collar underneath trime...

Authors: Dehua Liu, Hongyun Wang, Mizuki Yamamoto, Jiping Song, Rui Zhang, Qingling Du, Yasushi Kawaguchi, Jun-ichiro Inoue and Zene Matsuda

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in an era of stalled HIV prevention: Can it change the game?

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV prevention has evolved significantly over the years where clinical trials have now demonstrated the efficacy of oral PrEP, and the field is scaling-up implementation. Th...

Authors: Robyn Eakle, Francois Venter and Helen Rees

Why was PERV not transmitted during preclinical and clinical xenotransplantation trials and after inoculation of animals?

Porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) are present in the genome of all pigs, they infect certain human cells and therefore pose a special risk for xenotransplantation using pig cells, tissues and organs. Xen...

Authors: Joachim Denner

A CRISPR screen for factors regulating SAMHD1 degradation identifies IFITMs as potent inhibitors of lentiviral particle delivery

The InterFeron Induced TransMembrane (IFITM) proteins are interferon stimulated genes that restrict many viruses, including HIV-1. SAMHD1 is another restriction factor blocking replication of HIV-1 and other v...

Authors: Ferdinand Roesch, Molly OhAinle and Michael Emerman

An RNA-binding compound that stabilizes the HIV-1 gRNA packaging signal structure and specifically blocks HIV-1 RNA encapsidation

NSC260594, a quinolinium derivative from the NCI diversity set II compound library, was previously identified in a target-based assay as an inhibitor of the interaction between the HIV-1 (ψ) stem-loop 3 (SL3) ...

Authors: Carin K. Ingemarsdotter, Jingwei Zeng, Ziqi Long, Andrew M.L. Lever and Julia C. Kenyon

Predominant envelope variable loop 2-specific and gp120-specific antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity antibody responses in acutely SIV-infected African green monkeys

The initial envelope (Env)-specific antibody response in acutely HIV-1-infected individuals and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected rhesus monkeys (RMs) is dominated by non-neutralizing antibodies tar...

Authors: Quang N. Nguyen, David R. Martinez, Jonathon E. Himes, R. Whitney Edwards, Qifeng Han, Amit Kumar, Riley Mangan, Nathan I. Nicely, Guanhua Xie, Nathan Vandergrift, Xiaoying Shen, Justin Pollara and Sallie R. Permar

Recent advances in retroviruses via cryo-electron microscopy

Cryo-electron microscopy has undergone a revolution in recent years and it has contributed significantly to a number of different areas in biological research. In this manuscript, we will describe some of the ...

Authors: Johnson Mak and Alex de Marco

Measuring integrated HIV DNA ex vivo and in vitro provides insights about how reservoirs are formed and maintained

The identification of the most appropriate marker to measure reservoir size has been a great challenge for the HIV field. Quantitative viral outgrowth assay (QVOA), the reference standard to quantify the amoun...

Authors: Marilia Rita Pinzone and Una O’Doherty

Measuring replication competent HIV-1: advances and challenges in defining the latent reservoir

Antiretroviral therapy cannot cure HIV-1 infection due to the persistence of a small number of latently infected cells harboring replication-competent proviruses. Measuring persistent HIV-1 is challenging, as ...

Authors: Zheng Wang, Francesco R. Simonetti, Robert F. Siliciano and Gregory M. Laird

Non-coding RNAs and retroviruses

Retroviruses can cause severe diseases such as cancer and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. A unique feature in the life cycle of retroviruses is that their RNA genome is reverse transcribed into double-stra...

Authors: Xu Zhang, Xiancai Ma, Shuliang Jing, Hui Zhang and Yijun Zhang

Assessment of the gorilla gut virome in association with natural simian immunodeficiency virus infection

Simian immunodeficiency viruses (SIVs) of chimpanzees and gorillas from Central Africa crossed the species barrier at least four times giving rise to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) groups M, N, O ...

Authors: Mirela D’arc, Carolina Furtado, Juliana D. Siqueira, Héctor N. Seuánez, Ahidjo Ayouba, Martine Peeters and Marcelo A. Soares

Beyond the replication-competent HIV reservoir: transcription and translation-competent reservoirs

Recent years have seen a substantial increase in the number of tools available to monitor and study HIV reservoirs. Here, we discuss recent technological advances that enable an understanding of reservoir dyna...

Authors: Amy E. Baxter, Una O’Doherty and Daniel E. Kaufmann

Aged Chinese-origin rhesus macaques infected with SIV develop marked viremia in absence of clinical disease, inflammation or cognitive impairment

Damage to the central nervous system during HIV infection can lead to variable neurobehavioral dysfunction termed HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). There is no clear consensus regarding the neuro...

Authors: Stephanie J. Bissel, Kate Gurnsey, Hank P. Jedema, Nicholas F. Smith, Guoji Wang, Charles W. Bradberry and Clayton A. Wiley