Research

Involvement of a small GTP binding protein in HIV-1 release

Gilles Audoly¹, Michel R Popoff² and Pablo Gluschankof^1*

• * Corresponding author: Pablo Gluschankof pablo.gluschankof@medecine.univ-mrs.fr

Author Affiliations

¹ Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR6020, Faculté de Médecine, 27 bd Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille cedex 05, IFR48, France

² Unité des Bactéries Anaérobies et Toxines, Institut Pasteur, 28 rue du Dr. Roux, 75724 Paris Cedex 15, France

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Retrovirology 2005, 2:48 doi:10.1186/1742-4690-2-48

Published: 4 August 2005

Abstract

Background

There is evidence suggesting that actin binding to HIV-1 encoded proteins, or even actin dynamics themselves, might play a key role in virus budding and/or release from the infected cell. A crucial step in the reorganisation of the actin cytoskeleton is the engagement of various different GTP binding proteins. We have thus studied the involvement of GTP-binding proteins in the final steps of the HIV-1 viral replication cycle.

Results

Our results demonstrate that virus production is abolished when cellular GTP binding proteins involved in actin polymerisation are inhibited with specific toxins.

Conclusion

We propose a new HIV budding working model whereby Gag interactions with pre-existing endosomal cellular tracks as well as with a yet non identified element of the actin polymerisation pathway are required in order to allow HIV-1 to be released from the infected cell.