Previous studies have shown that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease cleaves procaspase 8 to a fragment, termed Casp8p41, that lacks caspase activity but nonetheless contributes to T cell apoptosis. Herein, we show that Casp8p41 contains a domain that interacts with the BH3-binding groove of pro-apoptotic Bak to cause Bak oligomerization, Bak-mediated membrane permeabilization, and cell death. Levels of active Bak are higher in HIV-infected T cells that express Casp8p41. Conversely, targeted mutations in the Bak-interacting domain diminish Bak binding and Casp8p41-mediated cell death. Similar mutations in procaspase 8 impair the ability of HIV to kill infected T cells. These observations support a novel paradigm in which HIV converts a normal cellular constituent into a direct activator that functions like a BH3-only protein.
Pubmed ID: 25246614 RIS Download
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Software package of molecular simulation programs. It is distributed into AmberTools15 and Amber14. AmberTools15 is a software package which can carry out complete molecular dynamics simulations with either explicit water or generalized Born solvent models. It is distributed in source code format and must be compiled in order to be used. Amber14 builds on AmberTools15 by adding the pmemd program, which provides better performance on multiple CPUs and dramatic speed improvements on GPUs compared to sander (molecular dynamics). GPU info, manuals, and tutorials are available on the website.
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