Identification of a binding site of the human immunodeficiency virus envelope protein gp120 to neuronal‐specific tubulin
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV) promotes synaptic simplification and neuronal apoptosis, and causes neurological impairments termed HIV-associated neurological disorders. HIV-associated neurotoxicity may be brought about by acute and chronic mechanisms that still remain to be fully characterized. The HIV envelope glycoprotein gp120 causes neuronal degeneration similar to that observed in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders subjects. This study was undertaken to discover novel mechanisms of gp120 neurotoxicity that could explain how the envelope protein promotes neurite pruning. Gp120 has been shown to associate with various intracellular organelles as well as microtubules in neurons. We then analyzed lysates of neurons exposed to gp120 with liquid chromatography mass spectrometry for potential protein interactors. We found that one of the proteins interacting with gp120 is tubulin β-3 (TUBB3), a major component of neuronal microtubules. We then tested the hypothesis that gp120 binds to neuronal microtubules. Using surface plasmon resonance, we confirmed that gp120 binds with high affinity to neuronal-specific TUBB3. We have also identified the binding site of gp120 to TUBB3. We then designed a small peptide (Helix-A) that displaced gp120 from binding to TUBB3. To determine whether this peptide could prevent gp120-mediated neurotoxicity, we cross-linked Helix-A to mesoporous silica nanoparticles (Helix-A nano) to enhance the intracellular delivery of the peptide. We then tested the neuroprotective property of Helix-A nano against three strains of gp120 in rat cortical neurons. Helix-A nano prevented gp120-mediated neurite simplification as well as neuronal loss. These data propose that gp120 binding to TUBB3 could be another mechanism of gp120 neurotoxicity. We propose a novel direct mechanism of human immunodeficiency virus neurotoxicity. Our data show that the viral protein gp120 binds to neuronal specific tubulin β-3 and blocks microtubule transport. Displacing gp120 from binding to tubulin by a small peptide prevents gp120-mediated neuronal loss. Our study reveals a novel target for developing adjunct therapies against viral infection that promotes neurocognitive disorders.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".