Cloning, Expression and Purification of HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase

Virus-encoded HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RTase) is one of the major targets for the development of drugs for HIV-1 since it is an essential enzyme-for the replication cycle of HIV-1. We cloned the entire reverse trancriptase gene into an inducible expression vector with tac promotor= RTase was stably overexpressed and induced by IPTG and the highly-expressed RTase was purified partially by use of DEAE cellulose and Mono Q column. The partially purified enzyme (663kDa, 51kDa) as exhibited by SDS-PAGE showed the high specific activity (16,570U/mg) when the assay for the RTase activity was carried out using $^3$H-dTTP and poly(rA): oligo(dT)12-18 as the substrate.