Meta-Biol

• Pathways

The amino terminal glycine residue of HIV-1 Gag polyprotein is myristoylated (Henderson et al. 1992). Myristoylation of newly synthesized Gag occurs in the cytosol of the infected host cell, with myristoyl-CoA as the myristate donor and the host cell NMT2 enzyme as the catalyst. Human cells express two isoforms of N-myristoyl transferase (NMT) (Giang and Cravatt 1998). The argumant that the second isoform catalyzes this reaction is indirect, based on the the observations that a stable enzyme:substrate complex forms transiently during the reaction (Farazi et al. 2001), and that Gag polyprotein can be found complexed with NMT2 (but not NMT1) in HIV-1-infected human cells (Hill and Skowronski 2005).