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. 1988 Nov;85(21):8291–8295. doi: 10.1073/pnas.85.21.8291

Transcriptional activation of homologous viral long terminal repeats by the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 or the human T-cell leukemia virus type I tat proteins occurs in the absence of de novo protein synthesis.

K T Jeang 1, P R Shank 1, A Kumar 1
PMCID: PMC282415  PMID: 2847157

Abstract

The genomes of human retroviruses [human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV-I)] encode positive trans-activator proteins, named tat. In the presence of tat, the transcriptional activity of the homologous HIV-1 or HTLV-I long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter is markedly increased. We have constructed mammalian cell lines that contain stably integrated copies of a HIV-1 or a HTLV-I LTR-chloramphenicol acetyltransferase (CAT) gene. When presynthesized HIV-1 or HTLV-I tat proteins were separately introduced into these cells in the presence of cycloheximide, we found a strong increase in the steady-state expression of the homologous viral LTR. Nuclear "run-on" assays verified that this tat-mediated enhancement, occurring in the absence of de novo cellular protein synthesis, was due to increased transcriptional initiation at the LTR promoter. We conclude that one aspect of transcriptional trans-activation of viral LTR by the HIV-1 and HTLV-I tat proteins does not require the production of new cellular proteins.

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