Different effects of the TAR structure on HIV-1 and HIV-2 genomic RNA translation.

Ricardo Soto-Rifo (1) , Taran Limousin , Paulina S Rubilar , Emiliano P Ricci , Didier Décimo (2) , Olivier Moncorgé (3) , Mary-Anne Trabaud , Patrice André (1, 4) , Andrea Cimarelli (1) , Théophile Ohlmann (1)

1 Université de Lyon
2 Virologie humaine
3 Aptanomics
4 I2V - Immunité infection vaccination

The 5'-untranslated region (5'-UTR) of the genomic RNA of human immunodeficiency viruses type-1 (HIV-1) and type-2 (HIV-2) is composed of highly structured RNA motifs essential for viral replication that are expected to interfere with Gag and Gag-Pol translation. Here, we have analyzed and compared the properties by which the viral 5'-UTR drives translation from the genomic RNA of both human immunodeficiency viruses. Our results showed that translation from the HIV-2 gRNA was very poor compared to that of HIV-1. This was rather due to the intrinsic structural motifs in their respective 5'-UTR without involvement of any viral protein. Further investigation pointed to a different role of TAR RNA, which was much inhibitory for HIV-2 translation. Altogether, these data highlight important structural and functional differences between these two human pathogens.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Ricardo Soto-Rifo, Taran Limousin, Paulina S Rubilar, Emiliano P Ricci, Didier Décimo, et al.. Different effects of the TAR structure on HIV-1 and HIV-2 genomic RNA translation.. Nucleic Acids Research, 2012, 40 (6), pp.2653-67. ⟨10.1093/nar/gkr1093⟩. ⟨hal-00965639⟩