Evidence for a Unique Mechanism of Strand Transfer from the Transactivation Response Region of HIV-1

We previously found that strand transfer by human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) reverse transcriptase (RT) is promoted at sites where RT pauses during synthesis. In this report, strand transfer is measured within the 5′ transactivation response region (TAR) of HIV-1 RNA. We hypothesized that the stable hairpin structure of TAR would induce RT pausing, promoting RNase H-directed cleavage of the template and subsequent transfer at that...