Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, United States
Wen Li
Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, United States; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
Maritza Puray-Chavez
Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, United States
Dana Townsend
Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, United States
Dana Q Lawson
Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, United States
Alan N Engelman
Department of Cancer Immunology and Virology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, United States; Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States
A large number of human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) integrase (IN) alterations, referred to as class II substitutions, exhibit pleiotropic effects during virus replication. However, the underlying mechanism for the class II phenotype is not known. Here we demonstrate that all tested class II IN substitutions compromised IN-RNA binding in virions by one of the three distinct mechanisms: (i) markedly reducing IN levels thus precluding the formation of IN complexes with viral RNA; (ii) adversely affecting functional IN multimerization and consequently impairing IN binding to viral RNA; and (iii) directly compromising IN-RNA interactions without substantially affecting IN levels or functional IN multimerization. Inhibition of IN-RNA interactions resulted in the mislocalization of viral ribonucleoprotein complexes outside the capsid lattice, which led to premature degradation of the viral genome and IN in target cells. Collectively, our studies uncover causal mechanisms for the class II phenotype and highlight an essential role of IN-RNA interactions for accurate virion maturation.
