1. Molecular mechanism of HIV-1 resistance to sifuvirtide, a clinical trial–approved membrane fusion inhibitor
- Author
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Yuxian He, Huihui Chong, Xiaohui Ding, Danwei Yu, Xiyuan Wu, Huanmian Wei, Zixuan Liu, Yuanmei Zhu, and Sheng Cui
- Subjects
0301 basic medicine ,Protein Conformation ,Viral protein ,Sequence Homology ,HIV Infections ,Plasma protein binding ,Crystallography, X-Ray ,Gp41 ,medicine.disease_cause ,Microbiology ,Membrane Fusion ,Biochemistry ,Structure-Activity Relationship ,03 medical and health sciences ,Protein structure ,HIV Fusion Inhibitors ,Drug Resistance, Viral ,medicine ,Humans ,Amino Acid Sequence ,Binding site ,Molecular Biology ,Peptide sequence ,Binding Sites ,Chemistry ,virus diseases ,Lipid bilayer fusion ,Cell Biology ,HIV Envelope Protein gp41 ,Cell biology ,Heptad repeat ,HEK293 Cells ,030104 developmental biology ,Mutation ,HIV-1 ,Peptides ,Protein Binding - Abstract
Host cell infection with HIV-1 requires fusion of viral and cell membranes. Sifuvirtide (SFT) is a peptide-based HIV-1 fusion inhibitor approved for phase III clinical trials in China. Here, we focused on characterizing HIV-1 variants highly resistant to SFT to gain insight into the molecular resistance mechanism. Three primary substitutions (V38A, A47I, and Q52R) located at the inhibitor-binding site of HIV-1's envelope protein (Env) and one secondary substitution (N126K) located at the C-terminal heptad repeat region of the viral protein gp41, which is part of the envelope, conferred high SFT resistance and cross-resistance to the anti-HIV-1 drug T20 and the template peptide C34. Interestingly, SFT's resistance profile could be dramatically improved with an M-T hook structure-modified SFT (MTSFT) and with short-peptide inhibitors that mainly target the gp41 pocket (2P23 and its lipid derivative LP-19). We found that the V38A and Q52R substitutions reduce the binding stabilities of SFT, C34, and MTSFT, but they had no effect on the binding of 2P23 and LP-19; in sharp contrast, the A47I substitution enhanced fusion inhibitor binding. Furthermore, the primary resistance substitutions impaired Env-mediated membrane fusion and cell entry and changed the conformation of the gp41 core structure. Importantly, whereas the V38A and Q52R substitutions disrupted the N-terminal helix of gp41, a single A47I substitution greatly enhanced its thermostability. Taken together, our results provide crucial structural insights into the mechanism of HIV-1 resistance to gp41-dependent fusion inhibitors, which may inform the development of additional anti-HIV drugs.
- Published
- 2018