Fate of Invisible U/A Base Pairs Within HIV DNA in Myeloid Phagocytic Cells

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 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): We have delineated the elements of a novel HIV-1 restriction/persistence mechanism that operates solely within the unique intracellular environment of bone marrow-derived monocytes (MCs) and monocyte-derived macrophages (MDMs), but not resting or activated T cells. The mechanism centers on the high concentration of dUTP in MCs and MDMs, which forces reverse transcriptase (RTase) to incorporate dUMP opposite to adenine during reverse transcription, leading to high levels of U/A base pairs ("uracilation"). Importantly, U/A pairs do not perturb the coding sequence and are invisible to standard DNA sequencing methods because U reads as T. However, U/A pairs are a substrate for the host uracil base excision repair (UBER) machinery, which modulates the outcome of HIV infection in these cells. Uracilation and UBER impact HIV infection of macrophages in diverse ways. First, potent pre- integration restriction occurs by uracil excision and viral DNA fragmentation. Proviruses that escape initial restriction contain U/A pairs that can persist, resulting in uracil- induced silencing of HIV-1 gene expression. Upon stimulation of infected MDMs with pro-inflammatory cytokines, otherwise stable uracilated proviruses become heavily mutagenized through error-prone UBER, suggesting that the M1/M2 polarization state of the macrophage can determine the fate viral uracils. Low levels of infectious virus can emerge from uracilated proviruses even after many weeks. In three aims we seek to (i) Elucidate the impact of the UBER pathway in HIV infection of macrophages and MCs. (ii) Determine the effects of U/A base pairs on HIV LTR-driven transcription in MDMs, and (iii) Use the time frame for uracil removal and its characteristic mutagenic signature to determine whether proviruses that have been previously detected in short-lived circulating MCs in HIV infected patients on cART originate from their contact with infected macrophages in various tissues. The elucidation of the role of host UBER in viral infections of macrophages and monocytes is expected to uncover new host drug targets for combating HIV establishment and persistence in these unique immune cells. This proposal brings together clinicians and basic scientists with broad and highly complementary backgrounds in immunology, HIV latency, uracil DNA repair and in obtaining alveolar macrophages from bronchial lavage of HIV-infected volunteers.