HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, an enzyme essential for the replication of HIV
[Cover of Science at Williams '94]

Cover: A space-filling model of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, an enzyme essential for the replication of HIV is shown bound to a double-stranded DNA primer-template (gold strands). This view of the enzyme shows the large central groove that is responsible for binding the viral nucleic acid. Three amino acids that are involved in the catalytic activity are shown in yellow. Two groups of amino acids that confer resistance to AZT are shown in green and purple. Above and to the left is a stick model of the drug AZT, an inhibitor of reverse transcriptase. How mutations in reverse transcriptase cause it to become resistant to AZT is one of the problems being addressed in Robert Evans' laboratory (Chemistry department, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology program). To make this model, a sidechain completion procedure was performed by Max Nanao ('95) with the program "Sybyl" on an Indigo2 Silicon Graphics workstation using the x-ray crystallographic coordinates from the Brookhaven protein data bank file 1HMI.