Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a lentivirus (a member of the retrovirus family) that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in humans in which the immune system begins to fail, leading to lifethreatening opportunistic infections.HIV-1 Negative factor (Nef) is a protein essential for the metabolism of the virus. Here we investigate the interactions of NEF with one of its targets on infected human cells, the human thioesterase 8 (hTE8) enzyme. Homology modeling, virtual protein-protein docking and Molecular Dynamics Simulation experiments are carried out on the structural models of the enzyme and the complex respectively, with the aim of characterizing the putative interaction region. A plausible, albeit approximate, binding region is identified. The latter help interpret existing site directed mutagenesis data. Our calculations suggest also that the system largescale dynamics change upon complex formation.

B.S. & M.S. degree in Electronics Engineering at Politecnico, Milan, 1980- M.B.A. in General Management at University Bocconi, Milan, 1987-Ph.D. in Computational Biology (Bioinformatics) at University of Verona, 2011-TRENTO High School Professor of Informatics & Modeling Consultant (Financial Markets, Computational Biology, Finite Elements analys

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