Role of Cofilin 1 pathway and actin dynamics in nuclear retinoid receptor function

We have investigated the role of actin dynamics and the effect of actin cytoskeleton modifying agents on retinoid receptor-mediated transactivation. Using Nef, an actin modifying HIV-1 protein, the role of LMK1/CFL1-mediated actin dynamics in receptor function was studied. The effect of Nef expression on transcriptome was investigated following transfection of HEK293 cells with Nef-expressing plasmid. The array data identified Nef-induced inhibition of a number of genes that contain retinoid receptor binding sites in their promoters. The experiment was designed to study the effect of expression of HIV-1 Nef protein on gene expression levels in HEK293 cells. Cells were transfected in three different experiments (each time in duplicate) with Nef expressing plasmid and a plasmid that contained a non-expressing Nef construct (Nef/Stop) as control. The cells were harvested after 36 of transfection and processed for gene array.