Alteration of Nucleic Acid Structure and Stability Modulates the Efficiency of Minus-Strand Transfer Mediated by the HIV-1 Nucleocapsid Protein

During human immunodeficiency virus type 1 minus-strand transfer, the nucleocapsid protein (NC) facilitates annealing of the complementary repeat regions at the 3′-ends of acceptor RNA and minus-strand strong-stop DNA ((-) SSDNA). In addition, NC destabilizes the highly structured complementary trans-activation response element (TAR) stem-loop (TAR DNA) at the 3′-end of (-) SSDNA and inhibits TAR-induced self-priming, a dead-end reaction that...