Date of Award

2018

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Microbiology and Immunology

Abstract

An important part of the HIV-1 infection cycle is the attachment of the intracellular viral core to the host microtubule network, facilitated by attachment of the viral capsid to cargo adaptor proteins. One such cargo adaptor is Bicaudal D Homolog Protein 2 (BICD2). BICD2 can attach to both the HIV-1 capsid and the dynein/dynactin complex and facilitate the trafficking of the viral core towards the host nucleus. Removal of BICD2 can disrupt this viral translocation, resulting in an elevated immune response that impairs productive HIV-1 infection. In my research, we investigated what viral particles are detected in the absence of BICD2, as well as what host factors are involved in detection and immune response. We found that the viral capsid is the key viral determinant, that capsid sensor TRIM5α appears involved in detection, and that the larger immune response spans the innate and adaptive arms of the immune response.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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