More than five years ago, our laboratory, and other laboratories, reported a link between the tumor suppressor protein (Tsg) 101 and the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the etiological agent of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). This discovery initiated a virtual explosion of new studies that have brought together the fields of endocytic trafficking and animal virology and provided potential new targets for development of antiviral agents against HIV as well as other viruses. The Gag protein encoded by HIV was found to recruit Tsg101 and its binding partners, components of endocytic sorting complexes required for transport (ESCRT). We now know that Tsg101 is required for efficient release of HIV from infected cells. Paradoxically, Tsg101 normally promotes protein endocytosis and functions with other ESCRT factors in sorting of endocytic cargo to degradative compartments in the cell. We will present evidence that non-ESCRT proteins modulate Tsg101 function to facilitate release of assembled viral proteins from budding sites at the cell periphery.

Dr. Carol Carter is a Professor of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology and an Adjunct Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She obtained her Ph.D. from Yale University and carried out Post-doctoral training at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in the field of Animal Virology. At Stony Brook, Professor Carter serves as research advisor to doctoral and post-doctoral students, as a teacher in undergraduate and graduate student courses, as co-Chair of Graduate Admissions for the Stony Brook Program in Molecular Genetics & Microbiology and as Director of the Summer Research Internship Program for Undergraduates. She also serves on a number of departmental and university administrative committees. She serves the scientific community as a member of several federal committees such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Etiology and Pathogenesis Planning Committee, which advises on current trends in Retrovirus research for the purpose of identifying areas of funding priority. She also serves as consultant to Scientific Review Committees of NIH. She was invited recently to serve on the NIH NIAID Council. She is or has been a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and the Journal of Virology.

Professor Carter’s major research interest is replication of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), with a focus on viral assembly and trafficking events required for virus release from infected cells. Her work on Retroviral Assembly and Pathogenesis, which has been supported by NIH funding for the past several decades, has been published in several high-impact peer-reviewed journals. She has been invited to present seminars on her studies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan and has also chaired and organized symposia at many national and international conferences. Six years ago, her laboratory made the seminal discovery that Tsg101, a cellular protein that regulates sorting and trafficking in the endocytic pathway, interacts with HIV-1. This finding has changed the way investigators in the fields of virology and cell biology think about protein trafficking and offers new possibilities for interfering with viral assembly that could have broad implications for drug development against HIV and other viral pathogens that exploit this cellular protein.

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http://www.biophysj.org/cgi/content/abstract/81/1/586

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