FUNCTIONAL DOMAIN MAPPING OF HIV-1 GAG PROTEINS

A series of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) proviral gag g ene mutants carrying bacterial CAT gene were constructed and monitored for the expression of reverse transcriptase and CAT in a highly sensi tive single-round replication assay system to determine the defective replication phase in lymphocytic cells. All the mutants displayed no a bnormality in the process of transcription and translation at late rep lication stage. In contrast, some matrix, capsid, and p6 mutants were defective at final phase, that is, assembly and virion release. Most o f the mutants including nucleocapsid mutants, which showed normal phen otype at late stage, were defective at early replication phase. From t he functional domain map thus obtained, it is evident that HIV-1 Gag p roteins are required for both early and late replication phases. (C) 1 997 Academic Press.