Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: The strictly conserved GGG-tracts in the 5’ and 3’ long terminal repeat of HIV-1 are critical to control multiple steps of HIV-1 replication to prevent acquisition of unwanted mutations in the region
doi: 10.64898/2026.04.24.720579
Figure Lengend Snippet: (A) A schematic represents heterogeneous transcriptional initiation site usage by HIV-1. The strictly conserved GGG-tract is located in the U3/R junction of the 5’ and 3’ LTR of HIV-1 clone DNA (pNL4-3EGFP ΔenvΔnef ). The 5’ leader sequences of HIV-1 RNA whose transcription initiates from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd deoxyguanosine in the tract are also shown (the 3G, 2G and 1G form, respectively). RNAs whose transcription initiates from nucleotides downstream of the tract are defined as the shorter form RNAs. The TATA-box and the GGG-tracts are highlighted by black and blue bold characters, respectively. (B) Nucleotide sequences between the TATA-box and the GGG-tract in the 5’ LTR of the HIV-1 references from the Los Alamos HIV databases ( http://www.hiv.lanl.gov , HIV Sequence Compendium 2023) are shown. Subtypes and accession numbers are shown. Dashes indicate nucleotide identity. The TATA-box and the GGG-tracts are highlighted as black and blue bold characters, respectively. (C) Nucleotide sequences of the CCC-CCC, TTT-TTT and AAA-AAA mutants of NL4-3EGFP ΔenvΔnef are shown. The mutated nucleotides are highlighted as red bold characters. The 5’ tract is highlighted with underlines. (D) Numbers of EGFP-positive cells produced with 1 mL of supernatant containing the VSV-G-pseudotyped NL4-3EGFP ΔenvΔnef wild-type (WT), AAA-AAA, CCC-CCC, or TTT-TTT mutant virus were evaluated. The numbers for WT were arbitrarily set as 100. Results from four independent experiments are shown. Asterisks code for statistical significance compared to WT: *, P<0.01.
Article Snippet: Viral RNA in virus particles were purified using Isogen (Fujifilm Wako) and purified RNAs were subjected to SMARTer® RACE 5’/3’ Kit (Takara Bio USA Inc., San Jose, CA).
Techniques: Sequencing, Produced, Mutagenesis, Virus