Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 Integrase (HIV-1 IN) is a 32kDalton protein that is transcribed from the 3' end of the viral HIV-1 pol gene.¹ It is one of three proteins that is encoded by HIV-1 and assembled into the viral particle.⁹  The other two enzymes are protease and reverse transcriptase.

    HIV-1 IN is an essential enzyme in the HIV life cycle.  After infection, the viral RNA is reverse transcribed into viral cDNA.  This DNA is then processed and inserted into the host's DNA through HIV-1 IN activity. 

    HIV-1 IN acts as a multimer.  It is made of three domains:  an amino-terminal Zinc binding domain, a catalytic core domain, and a carboxyl-terminal DNA-binding domain. Within one IN enzyme, there is one N-terminal domain, one core domain, and one C-terminal domain. These individual domains have been solved for, but the entire IN structure has not been solved for.

 

Processing & Joining Rxns    N-terminal domain    Core domain    C-terminal domain    References