It has been recently reported that the endogenous expression of HIV-1 Nef in human monocyte/macrophages induces the release of chemokines and other as yet unidentified soluble factors leading to multiple effects of pathogenic significance, such as the recruitment and activation of quiescent lymphocytes. However, the description of underlying molecular mechanisms remained elusive. We recently demonstrated that human monocyte-derived macrophages (MDM) efficiently internalize soluble rNef, thereby inducing effects largely resembling those observed in cells endogenously expressing Nef. By exploiting the rNef/MDM model, we sought to gain more insights on the molecular mechanisms underlying the response of MDM to Nef. Array analysis for the detection of transcripts from a large number of monokines, chemokines, cytokines, and receptors thereof showed that MDM promptly responded to rNef treatment by increasing the transcription of genes for several inflammatory factors. Analysis of supernatants revealed that rNef treatment induced the release of macrophage inflammatory proteins 1α and 1β, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α. Conversely, rNefs mutated in domains critical for the interaction with the endocytotic machinery (i.e., EE155-156QQ, and DD174-175AA) were ineffective. Interestingly, we found that the Nef-dependent release of inflammatory factors correlated with the activation of the NF-κB transcription factor, mainly in its p50/p50 homodimeric form, and in a de novo protein synthesis-independent manner. Our data add new hints supporting the idea that the presence of Nef is per se heavily detrimental for monocyte/macrophages and relative cross-talking cell types.
We report the first detailed comparison of two immunity proteins which, in conjunction with recent protein engineering data, begins to explain how these structurally similar proteins are able to bind and inhibit the endonuclease domain of colicin E9 (E9 DNase) with affinities that differ by 12 orders of magnitude. In the present work, we have determined the X-ray structure of the Escherichia coli colicin E7 immunity protein Im7 to 2.0 A resolution by molecular replacement, using as a trial model the recently determined NMR solution structure of Im9. Whereas the two proteins adopt similar four-helix structures, subtle structural differences, in particular involving a conserved tyrosine residue critical for E9 DNase binding, and the identity of key residues in the specificity helix, lie at the heart of their markedly different ability to bind the E9 DNase. Two other crystal structures were reported recently for Im7; in one, Im7 was a monomer and was very similar to the structure reported here, whereas in the other it was a dimer to which functional significance was assigned. Since this previous work suggested that Im7 could exist either as a monomer or a dimer, we used analytical ultracentrifugation to investigate this question further. Under a variety of solution conditions, we found that Im7 only ever exists in solution as a monomer, even up to protein concentrations of 15 mg/ml, casting doubt on the functional significance of the crystallographically observed dimer. This work provides a structural framework with which we can understand immunity-protein specificity, and in addition we believe it to be the first successfully refined crystal structure solved by molecular replacement using an NMR trial model with less than 100% sequence identity.
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