HIV-1 induces RNA silencing

[Winston]

HIV-1 induces RNA silencing

Report in Immunity is first of natural siRNAs triggered by the virus
By Graciela Flores

HIV-1 elicits RNA silencing in human cells, but also contains a
sequence that suppresses the process, researchers report in the May
issue of Immunity.

"Nucleic acid-based immunity in mammalian cells has been found before,
but to date, there has been no single report of a natural small
interfering RNA [siRNA] that is triggered by HIV in human cells,"
coauthor Kuan-Teh Jeang of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases in Maryland told The Scientist. The virus'
"counter strategy" described in the paper is also unprecedented,
according to Jeang.

Coauthor Yamina Bennasser and her colleagues characterized a sequence
in the HIV-1 genome that encodes a rare siRNA precursor, a short
hairpin RNA that is processed by the Dicer (or by a Dicer-like)
ribonuclease into small siRNAs. In addition, they found that the virus
prevents RNA silencing through a suppressor present in its Tat
protein, which interferes with Dicer's activity.

"It's a very nicely done and a very intriguing story," said Mario
Stevenson of the University of Massachusetts, who did not participate
in the study. "A number of groups, including ours, have looked at the
question of whether HIV encodes RNAs that can form siRNAs. Jeang's
group was able to reveal that it does before anyone else."

But John Rossi of City of Hope Beckman Research Institute in Duarte,
Calif., who was not involved in the research, questioned the
physiological relevance of the results. "It doesn't make much sense
that Dicer, a cytoplasmic enzyme, would be inhibited by Tat, which is
exclusively a nuclear enzyme," Rossi told The Scientist. "And the 19
base-pair hairpins they describe are not substrates for Dicer." Rossi
said that "dumping tons of Tat into the cells" can lead to "all sorts
of nonspecific effects."

Stevenson, however, is not concerned by those questions. "We are
learning of new substrates for Dicer all the time, and some groups
have shown that RNA silencing can also be achieved in the nucleus, not
only in the cytoplasm. The rules by which RNA interfering machinery
works are continually being tweaked and modified as we understand more
about the process," he said.

What did surprise Stevenson is the idea that HIV encodes siRNA and
avoids being inactivated by it by encoding a suppressor. "It seems an
incredible expenditure of effort," he said, but added, "viruses will
not always subscribe to human logic."

Stevenson is more interested in whether shRNAs can be effectively used
against HIV as a suppressor mechanism. "If Jeang's results prove to be
right, then the shRNAs therapeutic approach [which expresses a HIV
specific shRNA to be processed by Dicer into an antiviral form] may
not be optimal."

Jeang welcomed the debate. "What is science without criticism?" he
asked. "The excitement that drives me to this work, other than the
fact that it comments on an aspect of nucleic acid immunology, is that
the sequence that we have characterized doesn't change. It's
constantly eliciting siRNAs against the virus, forcing the virus to
develop a completely new mechanism. This is telling us that there is a
region in the virus' genome that, because of functional constraints,
cannot mutate."

According to Jeang, HIV researchers' "holy grail" is the ability to
find regions in the HIV genome that cannot mutate, and the sequence
that he and colleagues have characterized seems to be one such region
that cannot change for functional reasons.



Links for this article
Y. Bennasser et al., "Evidence that HIV-1 encodes an siRNA and a
suppressor of RNA silencing," Immunity, 22 607-19, May 2005.
http://www.immunity.com/

L.A. Pray, "Viroids, viruses, and RNA silencing," The Scientist,
18:23, August 30, 2004. http://www.the-scientist.com/2004/8/30/23/1

C.Q. Choi, "Human RNA silences viral DNA," The Scientist, April 22,
2005. http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050422/01

Kuan-Teh Jeang http://gpp.nih.gov/Researchers/Members/NIAID/Kuan-TehJeang.htm

Mario Stevenson http://www.umassmed.edu/pmm/faculty/stevenson.cfm

John J. Rossi http://www.cityofhope.org/gradschool/faculty/jrossi.asp

A. Adams, "RNA therapeutics enter clinical trials," The Scientist,
19:28, January 17, 2005. http://www.the-scientist.com/2005/1/17/28/1

C. Holding, "RNAi active in the nucleus?," The Scientist, January 11,
2005. http://www.the-scientist.com/news/20050111/01