REVERSE-TRANSCRIPTASE IS AN IMPORTANT FACTOR FOR THE PRIMER TRANSFER-RNA SELECTION IN HIV-1

During assembly, HIV-1 selectively packages tRNA(Lys3), the primer tRN A for reverse transcriptase (RT). Because of tRNA(Lys3)'s ability to i nteract with RT, RT may be the viral protein which binds to primer tRN A and carries it into the virus. We have tested this hypothesis by mea suring the amount of tRNA(Lys3) incorporated into wild type and RT(-) virus, and have also measured the tRNA tightly associated with the RNA genome, a characteristic of primer tRNA. We find that in RT(-) HIV-1, primer tRNA(Lys3) is reduced approximately 10 fold compared to wild t ype virus (which contains 8 molecules tRNA(Lys3)/virus), and the tRNA found tightly associated with the RNA genome is also greatly reduced i n these mutant virus.