Structural characterization of reverse transcriptase and endonuclease polypeptides of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome retrovirus

Automated N-terminal microsequencing of immune affinity-purified acquired immunodeficiency syndrome retrovirus polypeptides from infected cells was used to locate the N termini of 64-, 51-, and 34-kilodalton (kDa) polypeptides within the pol open reading frame (ORF) of the proviral DNA. The 64- and 51-kDa proteins had identical N termini (Pro-Ile-Ser-Pro-IIe-Glu-Thr-Val-) positioned 156 residues from the beginning of the pol ORF. The N terminus of the 34-kDa pol gene product, Phe-Leu-Asp-Gly-Ile-Asp-Lys-, mapped 716 residues into the pol ORF. These polypeptides were absent in an RT-negative, CD4-negative, persistently infected cell line (8E5) carrying a single defective copy of a constitutively expressed, integrated proviral DNA.     

Nuclease mechanism of the avian retrovirus pp32 endonuclease.

In vivo, the inferred circular retrovirus DNA precursor to the provirus contains two long terminal repeats (LTRs) in tandem. We studied the site-specific nicking of supercoiled DNA that contains tandem copies of avian retrovirus LTR DNA in vitro by using purified avian myeloblastosis virus pp32 endonuclease, Mg2+, and viral DNA substrates containing different LTR circle junction sequences. The results confirmed our previous observation that the pp32 protein generates two nicks, one in either viral DNA strand, each 2 nucleotides from the circle junction site. The specificity of nicking by pp32 was unchanged over an eight-fold range of protein concentration and with different avian retrovirus LTR circle junction substrates. These data are consistent with models which propose a role for the endonuclease in removal of two nucleotides from the LTR termini on integration of viral DNA in vivo.     

Partial phosphorylation in vivo of the avian retrovirus pp32 DNA endonuclease.

Avian retrovirus pp32, a DNA endonuclease which is structurally related to the avian retrovirus DNA polymerase beta polypeptide, has been demonstrated to be partially phosphorylated in vivo. Unlabeled or [35S]methionine-labeled pp32 from avian sarcoma virus or avian myeloblastosis virus migrated as an electrophoretic doublet on discontinuous sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide slab gels. However, pp32 immunoprecipitated from avian sarcoma virus labeled in vivo with [32P]orthophosphoric acid migrated as a single band, which co-electrophoresed with the slower-moving band of the doublet represented by unlabeled or 35S-labeled pp32. The presence of a slower-migrating phosphorylated band in pp32 suggests that the observed electrophoretic heterogeneity of purified pp32 is due to partial phosphorylation. Tryptic peptide analysis of 32P-labeled avian sarcoma virus beta and pp32 demonstrated that all the three labeled peptides in the beta polypeptide were also present in pp32. However, pp32 had one tryptic peptide which was preferentially labeled in comparison to the comigrating peptide found in beta digests, suggesting that phosphorylation may play a role in the processing of pp32 from beta or in the regulation of its associated DNA endonuclease activity.     

Sequence relatedness between the subunits of avian myeloblastosis virus reverse transcriptase.

One- and two-diminsional tryptic and chymotryptic peptide maps of 125-I-labeled alpha and alphabeta avian myeloblastosis virus DNA polymerase demonstrate that the alpha polypeptide of the one and two subunit enzymes are structurally similar, if not identical. Furthermore, the beta subunit contains the same major 125I-labeled peptides as alpha, plus several additional peptides. These relationships and the fact that aging of purified alphabeta avian myeloblastosis virus DNA polymerase increases the proportion of alpha DNA polymerase that can be isolated from the alphabeta enzyme by phosphocellulose chromatography, suggests that alpha is derived from beta by proteolytic cleavage.