Skip to main content

Advertisement

Log in

Functional reconstitution of lost activity of chemically cross-linked or mutant Moloney murine leukemia virus nucleocapsid proteins by trans-complementation

  • Published:
Archives of Virology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Summary.

 Intermolecular crosslinking of the retroviral gag structural proteins, capsid (CA) and nucleocapsid (NC), by oxidation of cysteine thiols interferes with virus assembly and infectivity. PD156202 is a dithiobisbenzamide with broad antiviral activity against retroviruses. Treatment of cell free Moloney murine leukemia virus (MuLV) particles with PD156202 induced crosslinking of gag structural proteins and inhibited reverse transcription in mellitin permeabilized virions. Site directed mutagenesis of NC cysteines in the zinc finger of MuLV proviral DNA resulted in virus particles that were noninfectious. The NC mutant virus did not display any intermolecular crosslinking following treatment with PD156202 under nonreducing conditions, which supported that NC cysteine residues participated in PD156202 mediated crosslinking. Replication of MuLV NC mutant virus could be restored by independent expression of wild type NC, making it susceptible to PD156202. These results demonstrate that oxidation of NC cysteines are detrimental for virus assembly and that complementation with wild type NC restored the nucleocapsid protein activity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Additional information

Received March 1, 2001 Accepted May 22, 2001

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Heldsinger, A., Sharmeen, L. Functional reconstitution of lost activity of chemically cross-linked or mutant Moloney murine leukemia virus nucleocapsid proteins by trans-complementation. Arch. Virol. 146, 2385–2400 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/s007050170010

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s007050170010

Keywords

Navigation