Cytoplasmic Dynein Promotes HIV-1 Uncoating

Cytoplasmic Dynein Promotes HIV-1 Uncoating

Blog Article

Retroviral capsid (CA) cores undergo uncoating during their retrograde transport (toward the nucleus), and/or after reaching the nuclear membrane.However, whether HIV-1 CA core uncoating is knowall.blog dependent upon its transport is not understood.There is some evidence that HIV-1 cores retrograde transport involves cytoplasmic dynein complexes translocating on microtubules.Here we investigate the role of dynein-dependent transport in HIV-1 uncoating.

To interfere with dynein function, we depleted dynein heavy chain (DHC) using RNA interference, and we over-expressed p50/dynamitin.In immunofluorescence microscopy experiments, DHC depletion caused an accumulation of CA foci in HIV-1 infected cells.Using a biochemical assay to monitor HIV-1 aptamil allerpro CA core disassembly in infected cells, we observed an increase in amounts of intact (pelletable) CA cores upon DHC depletion or p50 over-expression.Results from these two complementary assays suggest that inhibiting dynein-mediated transport interferes with HIV-1 uncoating in infected cells, indicating the existence of a functional link between HIV-1 transport and uncoating.