Multi-Scale Modeling of HIV Infection in vitro and APOBEC3G-Based Anti-Retroviral Therapy
Figure 1
APOBEC3G 3D model structure, HIV virion and its life cycle.
(A) 3D model structure of A3G proposed by Zhang et al. [47]. The 124–127 motif (red) is located beside the 128–130 Vif-binding region (green). (B) HIV particles are surrounded by fatty materials known as the viral envelope. The matrix formed from p17 protein is another layer underneath the viral envelope. The particles also contain two exact copies of RNA strands as well as three essential enzymes required for replication: reverse transcriptase, integrase and protease. (C) Mechanism of HIV infection including viral entry, genome integration, production and release of new viral particles, and encapsulation of A3G into virions is schematically shown. If the released viruses carry A3G, they are denoted A3G(+) viruses, otherwise they are denoted A3G(−). When A3G(+) viruses infect the next cell, the packaged A3G has several activities such as hypermutating the minus strand of viral DNA, and inhibiting various steps of reverse transcription and integration. “Null” symbols inside the cell represent degradation of Vif, A3G, and A3G-Vif complex.