Retroviruses, such as human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and avian sarcoma/leukosis virus (ASLV), bud from cells using a similar mechanism (see ). Monoubiquitination of viral Gag polyproteins, catalyzed by an E1, E2, and E3 ubiquitin ligase complex, is important in the process where the ubiquitin most likely serves as a ligand for assembly of various protein budding complexes [
1–
5]. A recent study, however, has presented evidence that either ubiquitination of Gag or ubiquitination of transacting proteins can be used to assemble downstream virus-budding complexes [
6]. Ubiquitin is a 76-amino-acid cell regulatory protein that is conjugated to proteins at lysine residues. Free ubiquitin in the cytosol is activated in an ATP-dependent reaction by an E1 enzyme, which then transfers the ubiquitin to a cysteine residue of an E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme. The E2 protein interacts with a specific E3 ubiquitin ligase, which selects the target protein for the covalent transfer of the ubiquitin.
While the mechanisms of release of HIV-1 and ASLV are similar, there is evidence that these viruses traffic through different cell membranes in the process. This is based on the facts that ASLV passes through membranes containing rhodamine labeled phosphatidylethanolamine, which gets incorporated into released virus-like particles, while HIV-1 does not [
7], the two viruses utilize different early ESCRT complexes as outlined hereinafter, and HIV-1 and ASLV Gag can colocalize with cholesterol-rich membranes, referred to as rafts. Nonetheless, when cholesterol is depleted from cells by treatment with methyl-
β-cyclodextrin, release of HIV-1 Gag [
8] but not ASLV Gag (Zhang and Leis, unpublished) virus-like particles is blocked.
Viral polyproteins enter the different budding pathways by recruiting specific host cell proteins, Nedd4, an E3 ubiquitin ligase, for ASLV [
9], Tsg101, an inactive homologue of the E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme, for HIV-1 [
10], and AIP1 or Alix for both [
11,
12]. These proteins bind to small proline-rich sequences, referred to as L-domain. Nedd4 binds to the “PPPY” core motif in the p2B region of ASLV Gag and Tsg101 binds to the “PTAP” core motif in the p6 region of HIV-1 Gag [
13–
15]. AIP1 binds to a “LYP (X
n)L” core motif in the same regions of p2B and p6, respectively, and where X is any amino acid and
n is a number of residues [
11,
12]. EIAV uses the LYPXL sequence in the p9 region of Gag as a high affinity site to bind AIP1/ALIX [
16]. The PPPY and PTAP L-domains are functionally exchangeable among viruses [
7,
17,
18]. In the case of HIV-1, if the L-domain sequences in p6 are mutated, budding of the virus can be rescued by overexpression of a Nedd4-like ubiquitin ligase (Nedd4L or 2s) indicating that an alternative exit process was used, though the mechanism of rescue is not understood because of a lack of the PPPY motif in HIV-1 Gag [
19–
21]. Overexpression of AIP1/ALIX can also rescue the effects of PTAP mutations [
20]. In some cases, viruses such as Moloney murine leukemia virus, Mason Pfizer monkey virus, and HTLV-I have both PTAP and PPPY motifs in Gag suggesting that they may use both egress pathways [
22,
23]. However, when two L-domains are present, one appears to be dominant [
22].
Tsg101 is known to be involved in membrane vesicle biogenesis and cytokinesis [
24,
25]. It forms part of the cellular endosomal sorting complex required for transport (ESCRT), which contains at least 20 proteins that assemble into several complexes referred to as ESCRT-0, -I, -II, and -III [
26]. HIV-1 specifically uses ESCRT-I but not ESCRT-II while ASLV utilizes ESCRT-II but not ESCRT-I proteins to assemble early budding complexes [
27–
29]. AIP1 is an adaptor protein for both. The early budding complexes then recruit the same ESCRT-III protein complex, which is responsible for the mechanical deformation that causes membrane scission to release particles [
30]. The ESCRT-III complex contains 11 different charged multivesicular body proteins (CHMPs) [
31]. Several of these contain MIT-interaction motifs (MIMs), which are the binding site for the vacuolar protein sorting protein 4 (VPS4) through interaction with a microtubule-interacting and transport domain (MIT) [
32,
33]. There are two types of MIM domains known; MIM1 is found in CHMP1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B and MIM2 is found in CHMP4A-C and CHMP6 [
34,
35]. VPS4 is normally localized in the cytosol as a homodimer. When recruited to the membrane, it forms a double hexamer ring structure in the presence of a coactivator protein, called LIP5 [
32,
36]. This conformational change activates its AAA ATPase. When ATP is hydrolyzed, VPS4 and the ESCRT-III complex are disassembled into the cytosol, promoting complex turnover which increases the efficiency of the budding process. A point mutation, E228Q, which inactivates the ATPase, produces a VPS4 protein that acts as a dominant negative inhibitor to virus release [
7,
23,
27]. LIP5 is delivered to membranes and VPS4 by binding to several ESCRT-III proteins including CHMP1B, 2A, 3, and 5 [
37]. CHMP5 differs from the other ESCRT-III proteins in that its LIP5 binding site is unique and it does not directly interact with VPS4 [
38].