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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 10: Posters: Imaging
BP 10.1: Poster
Montag, 11. März 2013, 17:30–19:30, Poster B2
Distinguishing immature and mature HIV-1 particles by superresolution optical fluorescence microscopy — •Viola Mönkemöller1, Benjamin Dale2, Wolfgang Hübner1, Benjamin Chen2, and Thomas Huser1 — 1Biomolecular Photonics, Universität Bielefeld, Germany — 2Immunology Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine New York, NY, USA
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the agent of the global epidemic of the immune disease AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Therefore further investigations on the viral structure and molecular mechanisms are of particular importance in the search for medical therapies. HIV-1 is assembled in infected cells and buds out as an immature particle. The uncleaved major structural polyprotein Gag defines the immature non-infectious state of the virus. HIV-1 has to undergo maturation to become infectious. During the maturation process Gag is cleaved which leads to a different structure in the infectious HIV-particle. We are interested in characterizing the immature and mature virus particles by superresolution fluorescence microscopy. The size of HIV-1 particles is approx. 130nm in diameter and is therefore below the diffraction limit of conventional fluorescence light microscopy. Techniques such as PALM (Photoactivated Localization Microscopy) and STORM (Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy) should allow us to resolve structures down to 20nm spatial resolution.
We plan to utilize this and other superresolution approaches to track the position and state of individual HIV virions in 4D, which will be very useful for future studies on HIV infection mechanisms.