Tat蛋白是HIV-1编码的重要调控蛋白,在病毒复制和感染致病中起重要作用。在感染细胞内,Tat蛋白与多种细胞分子相互作用,启动病毒基因组的转录,促进转录延伸,从而激活和促进病毒复制;分泌和释放至细胞外的Tat蛋白,具有独特的穿膜功能,可到达宿主多个部位,作用于多种细胞,产生多样的Tat蛋白胞外活性,如参与免疫抑制、神经系统损伤及卡波济肉瘤形成等致病过程,被称为“病毒毒素”。本文对Tat蛋白的生物学特性及其致病效应作一综述。
The regulatory protein Tat encoded by HIV-1 plays a crucial role in virus replication,infection and pathogenesis. Intracellular tat interacts with varieties of cellular-molecules to initiate and elongate the transcription of virus genome,thus activate and promote virus replication. Extracellular Tat with its unique function of cell-penetrating can reach many sites of the host and act on various cells and display multiple extracellular activities including immune suppression,nervous system injury and Kaposi sarcoma genesis,etc. In this sense,Tat is called "virus toxin". The biological characteristics and the pathogenic effects of Tat protein are reviewed in this paper.