Genome-wide integration scanning of wild-type and capsid mutants HIV-1

The capsid of HIV-1 is the viral nuclear translocation determinant. The interplay between viral capsid and nucleoporins (Nup) is on the basis of HIV-1 translocation through the nuclear pore complex. We created a series of HIV-1 capsid mutants and tested for their ability to infect dividing and non-dividing cells. Mutations were introduced in amino acids located in the hydrophobic pocket that interacts with phenylalanine-glycine (FG) repeats of the C terminus domain of Nup153. We tested the infectivity of viruses carrying capsid mutations which abolish the interaction between Nup153 and capsid in mitotic and non-mitotic cells.Genome-wide integration patterns of the N74D and N57S capsid mutants as compared to a wild-type (WT) HIV-1 were investigated in human lymphocytes Jurkat cells by employing the ligation-mediated PCR (LM-PCR) technique associated to massive sequencing by Illumina technology platform.