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Letter

Nature Cell Biology 8, 170–179 (1 February 2006) | doi:10.1038/ncb1352

The HIV-1 Vpr and glucocorticoid receptor complex is a gain-of-function interaction that prevents the nuclear localization of PARP-1

Karuppiah Muthumani , Andrew Y. Choo , Wei-Xing Zong , Muniswamy Madesh , Daniel S. Hwang , Arumugam Premkumar , Khanh P. Thieu , Joann Emmanuel , Sanjeev Kumar , Craig B. Thompson & David B. Weiner

The Vpr protein of HIV-1 functions as a vital accessory gene by regulating various cellular functions, including cell differentiation, apoptosis, nuclear factor of κB (NF-κB) suppression and cell-cycle arrest of the host cell. Several reports have indicated that Vpr complexes with the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), but it remains unclear whether the GR pathway is required for Vpr to function.