Maarit Suomalainen's Research Group
Host-virus interactions in the assembly of HIV-1
Principal Investigator
Maarit Suomalainen, Dr.Med.Sc.
Academy Research Fellow
Department of Virology
Room: E422
Tel: +358 9 191 26688
Fax: +358 9 191 26491
maarit.suomalainen(at)helsinki.fi
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alexey Karetnikov, PhD
Laboratory: E424
Office: E422
Tel: +358 9 191 26547 (laboratory)
Tel: + 358 9 191 26688 (office)
Research Interests
The goal of our research is to understand the molecular mechanisms and virus-cell interactions that direct the assembly of progeny virions in HIV-1 infected cells. These virions are formed at the plasma membrane of the infected cell. The assembly proceeds through packaging of viral genome into a core structure, that is composed of viral proteins Gag and Gag-Pol, and budding of the core through plasma membrane regions that contain viral Env proteins. A key factor in virus assembly is the viral accessory protein Vpu, since in the absence of Vpu, progeny virions are formed but the virus particles remain attached to the plasma membrane and are not efficiently released from the infected cell. Eventually, the tethered particles are removed from the cell surface by endocytosis. We want to find out why progeny virions remain tethered to the plasma membrane in the absence of Vpu and how Vpu prevents this tethering, and we are also interested in the molecular mechanisms that drive the endocytosis of ΔVpu-virions, since these Vpu-regulated events have a great impact on the number of progeny virions released from an infected cell.
Selected Publications
Harila, K., Salminen, A., Prior, I., Hinkula, J., Suomalainen, M., 2007. The Vpu-regulated endocytosis of HIV-1 Gag is clathrin-independent. Virology, in press (doi: 10.1016/j.virol.2007.08.009).
Harila, K., Prior, I., Sjöberg, E.M., Salminen, A., Hinkula, J., Suomalainen, M., 2006. Vpu and Tsg101 regulate intracellular targeting of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 core protein precursor Pr55Gag. J. Virol. 80, 3765-3772.
Holm, K., Weclewicz, K., Hewson, R., Suomalainen, M., 2003: HIV-1 assembly and lipid rafts: Pr55Gag complexes associate with membrane-domains that are largely resistant to Brij 98, but sensitive to triton X-100. J. Virol. 77, 4805-4817.
Suomalainen, M., 2002: Lipid rafts and assembly of enveloped viruses. Traffic 3, 705-709.
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