The C-terminal proline-rich tail of human immunodeficiency virus type 2 Vpx is necessary for nuclear localization of the viral preintegration complexin nondividing cells

Human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2), like other lentiviruses, is ca pable of infecting nondividing T cells and macrophages. The present work sh ows that in HIV-2-infected cells, Vpx is necessary for efficient nuclear im port of the preintegration complex. In agreement with this finding, the sub cellular Localization of a GFP-Vpx fusion protein was found to be predomina ntly nuclear, However, deletion of the proline-rich C-terminal 11 residues of Vpx resulted in a shift of the fusion protein to the cytoplasm, Furtherm ore, the same deletion in the context of the provirus resulted in a decreas e in nuclear import of the preintegration complex and attenuated replicatio n in macrophages.