Psi RNA-specific Binding Promotes HIV-1 Gag Conformational Change Critical for Immature Viral Particle Assembly.
The immature HIV-1 virion is assembled by the Gag polyprotein using inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6) as an essential assembly co-factor. Gag binds the genomic RNA Psi packaging signal via the nucleocapsid (NC) domain and associates with the plasma membrane via the matrix (MA) domain. Previous studies revealed that Gag e...