Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2007 Oct;89(10):1204-10.
doi: 10.1016/j.biochi.2007.01.016. Epub 2007 Feb 20.

New insights into the formation of HIV-1 reverse transcription initiation complex

Pierre Barraud  1 , Cyril Gaudin, Frédéric Dardel, Carine Tisné
Affiliations
Free article

New insights into the formation of HIV-1 reverse transcription initiation complex

Pierre Barraud et al. Biochimie. 2007 Oct.
Free article

Abstract

HIV-1 reverse transcriptase uses the host tRNA3(Lys) as a primer for the synthesis of the minus DNA strand. The first event in viral replication is thus the annealing of tRNA to the primer binding site (PBS) in the 5' UTR of the viral RNA. This event requires a major RNA rearrangement which is chaperoned by the viral NC protein. The binding of NC to nucleic acids is essentially non-specific, however, NC is known to bind selectively to hairpins located in the 5' region of the viral RNA. In a previous study, using an NMR approach in which the reaction is slowed down by controlling temperature, we were able to follow details in this RNA unfolding/refolding process and to uncover an intermediate state. We showed that annealing initiates at the junction between the acceptor and the TPsiC stems, and that, at physiological temperature, complete annealing is reached only in the presence of NC, probably when the zinc fingers contact the TPsiC/D loops. In the present work, we have refined our model of the formation of the tRNA3(Lys)/PBS duplex. First, we show that annealing can initiate both from the single-stranded CCA 3'-end bases of the acceptor stem and from the bases in the TPsiC stem. Secondly, by NMR and fluorescence spectroscopy, we have studied the complex between the NC protein and RNA hairpins that mimic the D and T arms of the tRNA3(Lys). Interestingly, the NC protein shows strong and specific binding to the D arm of tRNA3(Lys), which could explain the overall annealing mechanism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources