Does Moonlighting protein GAPDH hold the key to develop a radical new therapy against HIV/AIDS?

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25670062
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Environmental and hygienic pharmacy
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: SHOGO Misumi 熊本大学, 生命科学研究部, 教授 (40264311)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: HIV-1 / GAPDH / 宿主因子 / ウイルス複製 / 根治療法

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replication is positivity or negatively regulated by host proteins. Some of the host proteins are incorporated inside the virions during assembly and play essential roles. Here, we revealed that glycersldehyde 3-phosohate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), known as “moonlighting” protein, is incorporated into HIV-1 virion and decreases the packaging efficiency of lysyl-tRNAsynthetase (LysRS) and tRNALys3 into particles. The GAPDH-packaging-defective virus showed an increased infectivity, whereas the enhanced-GAPDH-packaging virus showed a decreased infectivity. Elucidating the inhibitory mechanism of GAPDH in HIV replication may help us to develop an novel HIV therapeutic strategy.

Free Research Field

ウイルス学