Our laboratory is interested in molecular aspects of retroviral replication.
Current work is focused on understanding retroviral DNA integration.
This reaction is catalyzed by the retrovirus-encoded protein, integrase. Our studies span a broad spectrum, from structure-function analyses of integrase to biological analyses of the integration process as it occurs in infected cells. Functional and structural comparisons provide clues to features of the process that are fundamental to DNA integration and those that can explain viral specificities. For the structure-function studies, we use purified integrase proteins, model DNA substrates and a panel of antibodies that recognize different domains of the HIV and ASLV integrase proteins. We are identifying host proteins required for nuclear import of the ASLV pre-integration complex and host proteins that facilitate or are essential for the integration reaction.