Docking of HIV-1 Vpr to the nuclear envelope is mediated by the interaction with the nucleoporin hCG1

The HIV-1 genome contains several genes coding for auxiliary proteins, including the small Vpr protein. Vpr affects the integrity of the nuclear envelope and participates in the nuclear translocation of the preintegration complex containing the viral DNA. Here, we show by photobleaching experiments performed on living cells expressing a Vpr-green fluorescent protein fusion that the protein shuttles between the nucleus and the cytoplasm, but a significant fraction is concentrated at the nuclear envelope, supporting the hypothesis that Vpr interacts with components of the nuclear pore complex. An interaction between HIV-1 Vpr and the human nucleoporin CG1 (hCG1) was revealed in the yeast two-hybrid system, and then confirmed both in vitro and in transfected cells. This interaction does not involve the FG repeat domain of hCG1 but rather the N-terminal region of the protein. Using a nuclear import assay based on digitonin-permeabilized cells, we demonstrate that hCG1 participates in the docking of Vpr at the nuclear envelope. This association of Vpr with a component of the nuclear pore complex may contribute to the disruption of the nuclear envelope and to the nuclear import of the viral DNA.

Benchmarking a modified version of the civ3 nonrelativistic atomic-structure code within Na-like-tungsten R -matrix calculations

In this work we explore the validity of employing a modified version of the nonrelativistic structure code civ3 for heavy, highly charged systems, using Na-like tungsten as a simple benchmark. Consequently, we present radiative and subsequent collisional atomic data compared with corresponding results from a fully relativistic structure and collisional model. Our motivation for this line of study is to benchmark civ3 against the relativistic grasp0 structure code. This is an important study as civ3 wave functions in nonrelativistic R-matrix calculations are computationally less expensive than their Dirac counterparts. There are very few existing data for the W LXIV ion in the literature with which we can compare except for an incomplete set of energy levels available from the NIST database. The overall accuracy of the present results is thus determined by the comparison between the civ3 and grasp0 structure codes alongside collisional atomic data computed by the R-matrix Breit-Pauli and Dirac codes. It is found that the electron-impact collision strengths and effective collision strengths computed by these differing methods are in good general agreement for the majority of the transitions considered, across a broad range of electron temperatures.