Current HIV research
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Current HIV research · Sep 2009
The apoptosis-inducing effects of HIV Vpr recombinant eukaryotic expression vectors with different mutation sites on transfected Hela cells.
The vpr gene of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) plays an important role in the pathogenicity of viruses. Previous studies showed that mutation of certain sites in HIV-1 Vpr amino acid sequences might influence the clinical process of infected individuals and attenuate its apoptosis-inducing capacity on infected cells. The present study was designed to transfect hela cells with several HIV-1 vpr fragments carrying specific mutation sites, and to observe the distinction of apoptosis-inducing effects of different HIV-1 vpr variant fragments on host cells and explore the possible mechanisms. ⋯ Meanwhile, we found that the Caspase3 activity of transfected cell carrying these mutated fragment sites was decreased as compared to the cell with other fragments. This study firstly found that the HIV-1 Vpr fragments with the 70(th), 85(th), 86(th), or 94(th) site mutation might attenuate their apoptosis-inducing abilities on Hela cells. One of the mechanisms might be the attenuation of Caspase-3 activity.