Abstract
Whether purified HIV-1 virion cores are capable of reverse transcription or require uncoating to be activated is currently controversial. To address this question we purified cores from a virus culture and tested for the ability to generate authentic reverse transcription products. A dense fraction (approximately 1.28 g/ml) prepared without detergent, possibly derived from disrupted virions, was found to naturally occur as a minor sub-fraction in our preparations. Core-like particles were identified in this active fraction by electron microscopy. We are the first to report the detection of authentic strong-stop, first-strand transfer and full-length minus strand products in this core fraction without requirement for an uncoating activity.
Highlights
Deoxyribonucleotides added directly to HIV-1 virions are incorporated into reverse transcription products [1,2,3,4]
This process, which is reported to disrupt the structure of the core in virions [5], is referred to as natural endogenous reverse transcription (NERT)
One commonly accepted interpretation of NERT is that the observed virion disruption is analogous to uncoating, and uncoating may be a requirement for formation of an active reverse transcription complex (RTC)
Summary
This process, which is reported to disrupt the structure of the core in virions [5], is referred to as natural endogenous reverse transcription (NERT). Whilst purified cores have been shown to contain reverse transcriptase [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15], there is just one report of cores generating authentic reverse transcription products, but only when complemented with an "uncoating activity" from activated lymphocytes [16].
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