{"doi":"10.1101/2022.11.04.515166","title":"HIV-1 Vpr induces ciTRAN to prevent transcriptional silencing of the provirus","abstract":"Abstract The functional relevance of circular RNA (circRNA) expression in HIV-1 infection remains unclear. By developing a customized protocol involving direct RNA nanopore sequencing here, we captured circRNAs in their native state from HIV-1 infected T cells and identified ciTRAN, a ci rcRNA modulator of HIV-1 Tran scription. We show that HIV-1 infection of monocytic, T cell lines and primary CD4+ T cells induces ciTRAN expression in a Vpr-dependent manner. ciTRAN protein interactome analysis by proximity biotinylation and mass spectrometry identified SRSF-1 as a prominent interactor of the circular RNA. SRSF-1 is known to negatively regulate HIV-1 transcription, which the virus overcomes by a yet unknown mechanism. We demonstrate that HIV-1 Vpr induced ciTRAN sequesters SRSF1 away from the viral transcriptional complex to promote efficient viral transcription. Accordingly, ciTRAN depletion by CRISPR-Cas phenocopied the effects of SRSF1 overexpression and improved SRSF1 association with HIV-1 transcriptional complex. Finally, we show that an SRSF-1-inspired competing peptide can inhibit HIV-1 transcription regardless of ciTRAN induction. The hijacking of a host circRNA thus represents a new facet of primate lentiviruses in overcoming transmission bottlenecks.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":299591,"datarank":0.24141568686511508,"base_score":1.6094379124341003,"endowment":1.6094379124341003,"self_citation_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.24141568686511508,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9619,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":579699,"name":"Aman Singh","orcid":"0000-0001-8946-4247","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":811683,"name":"Rishikesh Dalavi","orcid":"0000-0001-6897-4424","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":989932,"name":"Lalchhanhima Ralte","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":989933,"name":"Richard L. Chawngthu","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":78367,"name":"Nachimuthu Senthil Kumar","orcid":"0000-0002-0192-2133","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":579700,"name":"Nagarjun Vijay","orcid":"0000-0002-8703-6991","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":316635,"name":"Ajit Chande","orcid":"0000-0003-2210-5180","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":316633,"name":"Vipin Bhardwaj","orcid":"0000-0003-2076-6794","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:44.904250Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}