HIV-1 Lethality and Loss of Env Protein Expression Induced by...

HIV-1 Lethality and Loss of Env Protein Expression Induced by Single Synonymous Substitutions in the Virus Genome Intronic-Splicing Silencer

https://jvi.asm.org/content/94/21/e01108-20

...In this study, we explored how synonymous codon mutations impacted HIV-1 Env protein expression and virus replication capacity...

IMPORTANCE Synonymous substitutions can influence virus phenotype, replication capacity, and virulence. In this study, we explored how synonymous codon mutations impacted HIV-1 Env protein expression and virus replication capacity. We changed a single codon, AGG to CGU, which was located in the gp41 coding region (env nucleotide residues 2125 to 2127) and was included in the HIV-1 intronic splicing silencer. This change completely abolished virus replication and Env expression. We also found that changing codon usage in the gp120 region by including an increased number of CpG dinucleotides did not significantly affect Env expression or virus viability. Our findings showed that synonymous recoding was useful for altering viral phenotype and exploring virus biology.

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