DNA Interaction Kinetics of HIV-1 Nucleocapsid and Gag Proteins

The human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) Gag protein is essential for retroviral assembly. During viral maturation, Gag is processed to form matrix, capsid, and nucleocapsid (NC). NC is initially cleaved into the larger NCp15, then to NCp9, and finally to NCp7. NCp7 functions as a nucleic acid chaperone during retroviral replication, in which it rearranges nucleic acids to facilitate reverse transcription and recombination. The role of...