Formation of Stable and Functional HIV-1 Nucleoprotein Complexesin Vitro

HIV genomic RNA resides within the nucleocapsid, in the interior of the virus, which serves to protect the RNA against nuclease degradation and to promote its reverse transcription. To investigate the role of nucleocapsid protein (NCp7) in the stability and replication of genomic RNA within the nucleocapsid, we used NCp7, reverse transcriptase (RT) and RNAs representing the 5′ and 3′ regions of the genome to reconstitute functional HIV-1...