Determination of the protease cleavage site repertoire-The RNase H but not the RT domain is essential for foamy viral protease activity

•Unprocessed Gag is required for optimal infectivity of foamy viruses.•Positions P2 and P2׳ are invariant in the foamy viral cleavage sites.•The RNaseH domain is essential for protease activity.•The RNaseH domains of other retroviruses support foamy viral protease activity.

In contrast to orthoretroviruses, the foamy virus protease is only active as a protease-reverse transcriptase fusion protein and requires viral RNA for activation. Maturation of foamy viral proteins seems to be restricted to a single cleavage site in Gag and Pol. We provide evidence that unprocessed Gag is required for optimal infectivity, which is unique among retroviruses. Analyses of the cleavage site sequences of the Gag and Pol cleavage sites revealed a high similarity compared to those of Lentiviruses. We show that positions P2׳ and P2 are invariant and that Gag and Pol cleavage sites are processed with similar efficiencies. The RNase H domain is essential for protease activity, but can functionally be substituted by RNase H domains of other retroviruses. Thus, the RNase H domain might be involved in the stabilization of the protease dimer, while the RT domain is essential for RNA dependent protease activation.