UC San Diego

The mechanisms by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) circumvents and coopts cellular machinery to replicate and persist in cells are not fully understood. HIV accessory proteins play key roles in the HIV life cycle by altering host pathways that are often dependent on post-translational modifications (PTMs). Thus, the identification of HIV accessory protein host targets and their PTM status is critical to fully understand how HIV invades, avoids detection and replicates to spread infection. To date, a comprehensive characterization of HIV accessory protein host targets and modulation of their PTM status does not exist. The significant gap in knowledge regarding the identity and PTMs of HIV host targets is due, in part, to technological limitations. Here, we applied current mass spectrometry techniques to define mechanisms of viral protein action by identifying host proteins whose abundance is affected by the accessory protein Vpr and the corresponding modulation of down-stream signaling pathways, specifically those regulated by phosphorylation. By utilizing a novel, inducible HIV-1 CD4+ T-cell model system expressing either the wild type or a vpr-negative viral genome, we overcame challenges associated with synchronization and infection-levels present in other models. We report identification and abundance dynamics of over 7000 proteins and 28,000 phospho-peptides. Consistent with Vpr's ability to impair cell-cycle progression, we observed Vpr-mediated modulation of spindle and centromere proteins, as well as Aurora kinase A and cyclin-dependent kinase 4 (CDK4). Unexpectedly, we observed evidence of Vpr-mediated modulation of the activity of serine/arginine-rich protein-specific kinases (SRPKs), suggesting a possible role for Vpr in the regulation of RNA splicing. This study presents a new experimental system and provides a data-resource that lays the foundation for validating host proteins and phosphorylation-pathways affected by HIV-1 and its accessory protein Vpr.