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. 1992 Dec;66(12):7183–7192. doi: 10.1128/jvi.66.12.7183-7192.1992

Mutational analysis of human T-cell leukemia virus type I Tax: regions necessary for function determined with 47 mutant proteins.

O J Semmes 1, K T Jeang 1
PMCID: PMC240413  PMID: 1433511

Abstract

We have made 47 mutations that span the length of the human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I) Tax open reading frame. Of the 47 mutations, 38 were substitutions of single amino acids, 5 were missense changes in two or more amino acids, and 4 were deletions. A subset of these mutations includes individual changes of all 26 naturally occurring serines to alanines. By assaying each mutant protein separately on the HTLV-I long terminal repeat (LTR) and the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) LTR in parallel, we were able to identify regions of Tax selectively necessary for each promoter. A small region in the carboxyl terminus, amino acids 315 to 325, was found to be selectively important for activation of the HTLV-I LTR. Three changes at serine 113, serine 160, and serine 258 were found to specifically affect function on the HIV-1 LTR. Surprisingly, we found that the great preponderance of missense changes (32 of 42) in Tax did not affect function.

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Selected References

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