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Understanding The Impact Of Hiv-1 Genetic Diversity On The Function Of Nef And Its Role In Serinc5 Antagonism, Aaron Leslie Johnson
Understanding The Impact Of Hiv-1 Genetic Diversity On The Function Of Nef And Its Role In Serinc5 Antagonism, Aaron Leslie Johnson
Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository
HIV-1 Nef is a key pathogenic protein, allowing HIV-1 to evade the host immune system by downregulating MHC-I and CD4. Furthermore, it was recently discovered that Nef counteracts the host factor SERINC5 to increase HIV-1 infectivity, but the mechanistic details of the Nef:SERINC5 interaction still need to be explored. Throughout this dissertation, I will explore the hypothesis that the genetic diversity that defines HIV-1 has a pronounced effect on the HIV-1 protein Nef, altering its function between and within group M subtypes. To address this hypothesis I investigated how MHC-I and CD4 downregulation differ among all non-recombinant group M subtypes. …