The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 Rev protein: Ménage à trois during the early phase of the lentiviral replication cycle

Abstract

The Rev protein of human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) has long been recognized to be essential for the late phase of the virus replication cycle, due to its strong enhancement of expression of viral structural proteins. Surprisingly, a number of recent papers have demonstrated that Rev can also interfere with integration of the reverse-transcribed cDNA into the host-cell genome. This seems to be due to Rev's binding to integrase and LEDGF/p75, an important cellular cofactor of HIV-1 integration. As Rev is presumably expressed at sufficiently high levels only after the encoding genome has already integrated, the main function of Rev during the early phase might be to reduce genotoxicity due to excessive integration events after superinfection of the same cell by subsequent viruses. Other potential consequences for HIV-1 replication and evolution after co-infection of the same cell with two viruses are discussed. © 2010 SGM.