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Journal of Virology, September 1998, p. 7523-7531, Vol. 72, No. 9
Department of
Microbiology1 and
Department of
Medicine,2 University of Alabama at
Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294
Received 17 September 1997/Accepted 3 June 1998
The envelope glycoprotein (Env) of human immunodeficiency virus
type 1 (HIV-1) has been shown to redirect the site of virus assembly in
polarized epithelial cells. To test whether localization of the
glycoprotein exclusively to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) could
redirect virus assembly to that organelle in nonpolarized cells, an ER
-retrieval signal was engineered into an epitope-tagged variant of Env.
The epitope tag, attached to the C terminus of Env, did not affect the
normal maturation and transport of the glycoprotein or the
incorporation of Env into virions. The epitope-tagged Env was also
capable of mediating syncytium formation and virus entry with a similar
efficiency to that of wild-type Env. When the epitope was modified to
contain a consensus K(X)KXX ER retrieval signal, however, the
glycoprotein was no longer proteolytically processed into its surface
and transmembrane subunits and Env could not be detected at the cell
surface by biotinylation. Endoglycosidase H analysis revealed that the
modified Env was not transported to the Golgi apparatus.
Immunofluorescent staining patterns were also consistent with the
exclusion of Env from the Golgi. As expected, cells expressing the
modified Env failed to form syncytia with CD4+ permissive
cells. Despite this tight localization of Env to the ER, when the
modified Env was expressed in the context of virus, virions continued
to be produced efficiently from the plasma membrane of transfected
cells. However, these virions contained no detectable glycoprotein and
were noninfectious. Electron microscopy revealed virus budding from the
plasma membrane of these cells, but no virus was seen assembling at the
ER membrane and no assembled virions were found within the cell. These
results suggest that the accumulation of Env in an intracellular
compartment is not sufficient to redirect the assembly of HIV Gag in
nonpolarized cells.
0022-538X/98/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1998, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Retention of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type
1 Envelope Glycoprotein in the Endoplasmic Reticulum Does Not Redirect
Virus Assembly from the Plasma Membrane

*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Dept. of
Microbiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 845 19th St. South,
Birmingham, AL 35294-2170. Phone: (205) 934-4321. Fax: (205) 934-1640. E-mail: ehunter{at}uab.edu.
Present address: Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD 20892.
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