The interaction of illimaquinone, a selective inhibitor of the RNase H activity, with the reverse transcriptases of human immunodeficiency and murine leukemia retroviruses.

Illimaquinone, a natural marine product, was shown by us to inhibit preferentially the ribonuclease H (RNase H) activity of the reverse transcriptase (RT) of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). We have also shown that illimaquinone inhibits the RNase H activity of HIV-2 RT in addition to that of HIV-1 RT, murine leukemia virus RT, and Escherichia coli RNase H. Chemical modifications of HIV-1 RT by sulfhydryl-specific reagents, such as N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) have been demonstrated to specifically inhibit the RNase H activity of the enzyme. Since our previous studies have suggested that cysteine 280 in HIV-1 RT interacts with the sulfhydryl reagents, we have examined the possibility that illimaquinone interacts with the RT molecules via amino acid residues located in the vicinity of cysteine 280 in both HIV-1 and HIV-2 RTs. In the combined effect studies of illimaquinone and NEM, the two structurally unrelated compounds were shown to be mutually exclusive, exhibiting an antagonistic interaction with both HIV-1 and murine leukemia virus-associated RNase H activities. This implicates cysteine 280, in both HIV-1 and HIV-2 RTs, to be in close proximity to the putative binding site of the enzyme to illimaquinone. The above conclusion is further supported by the fact that the RNase H activity of an enzymatically active mutant of HIV-1 RT, in which cysteine 280 was replaced by serine, was substantially more resistant to illimaquinone than the corresponding activity of the wild-type enzyme. The fact that NEM failed to inhibit E. coli RNase H as opposed to illimaquinone highlights a major difference between the retroviral and bacterial RNase H.