Promiscuous Targeting of Cellular Proteins by Vpr Drives Systems-Level Proteomic Remodeling in HIV-1 Infection

Summary: HIV-1 encodes four “accessory proteins” (Vif, Vpr, Vpu, and Nef), dispensable for viral replication in vitro but essential for viral pathogenesis in vivo. Well characterized cellular targets have been associated with Vif, Vpu, and Nef, which counteract host restriction and promote viral replication. Conversely, although several substrates of Vpr have been described, their biological significance remains unclear. Here, we use complementary unbiased mass spectrometry-based approaches to demonstrate that Vpr is both necessary and sufficient for the DCAF1/DDB1/CUL4 E3 ubiquitin ligase-mediated degradation of at least 38 cellular proteins, causing systems-level changes to the cellular proteome. We therefore propose that promiscuous targeting of multiple host factors underpins complex Vpr-dependent cellular phenotypes and validate this in the case of G2/M cell cycle arrest. Our model explains how Vpr modulates so many cell biological processes and why the functional consequences of previously described Vpr targets, identified and studied in isolation, have proved elusive. : HIV infection results in global changes to the cellular proteome. Greenwood et al. show that one HIV protein, Vpr, is directly or indirectly responsible for almost all of these changes by targeting multiple proteins for degradation. This broad substrate specificity explains the difficulties to date in understanding this enigmatic protein. Keywords: HIV, Vpr, proteomics, Vpx, SIV, TMT, pulsed SILAC, mass spectrometry, IP-M