Sam68, Stress Granules, and translational control of HIV-1 nef mRNA

Abstract

More than 20 million people have died of AIDS since the early eighties, while nearly 34 millions are currently infected with the HIV. Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) directed at key viral enzymes has changed AIDS from uniformly fatal to a manageable chronic disease. However, ART-associated drug resistance and toxicity have posed a great challenge for long-term management of the disease and have called for development of new therapeutics. In this study, we focused on the viral factor Nef and the host factor Sam68. Nef is a major pathogenic viral determinant for HIV-1, and no therapeutics have been targeted to this factor. Sam68 is indispensible for HIV-1 propagation. We revealed that Sam68 variants were very potent in preventing Nef expression. We found that these effects were associated with their ability to form a macromolecular structure called stress granules (SG). In addition, we demonstrated that these variants bound to nef mRNA in a sequence-specific manner. Furthermore, we showed that these variants co-localized with nef mRNA in SG. Importantly, we validated these findings in the context of HIV-1 infection of its natural target cells and found significant loss of Nef function in these cells. Taken together, these results demonstrate that SG induction and nef mRNA sequestration account for translational suppression of Nef expression and offer a new strategy for development of anti-HIV therapeutics. Sam68 is implicated in a variety of other important cellular processes. Our findings that Sam68 variants were able to induce SG formation prompted us to investigate whether wild-type Sam68 was also recruited to SG. We found that Sam68 was increasingly recruited into SG under oxidative stress, and that its specific domains were involved. However, Sam68 knockdown had no effects on SG assembly, suggesting that Sam68 is not a constitutive component of SG assembly. Lastly, we demonstrated that Sam68 complexed with TIA-1, an essential SG component. Taken together, these results provide direct evidence for the first time that Sam68 is recruited into SG through complexing with TIA-1, and suggest that SG recruitment of Sam68 and ensuing changes in Sam68 physiological functions are part of the host response to external stressful conditions.