Nature Communications (Sep 2019)

Retroviral integration into nucleosomes through DNA looping and sliding along the histone octamer

  • Marcus D. Wilson,
  • Ludovic Renault,
  • Daniel P. Maskell,
  • Mohamed Ghoneim,
  • Valerie E. Pye,
  • Andrea Nans,
  • David S. Rueda,
  • Peter Cherepanov,
  • Alessandro Costa

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-12007-w
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 10

Abstract

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Retroviral integrases catalyze the insertion of viral DNA into the host cell DNA and can use nucleosomes as substrates for integration. Here the authors present the 3.9 Å cryo-EM structure of prototype foamy virus integrase after strand transfer into nucleosomal DNA, which together with single-molecule FRET measurements provides evidence for a DNA looping and sliding mechanism of integrases.