Researchers study how HIV-1 distinguishes its own RNA among all the others in the nucleus
(Phys.org) —Retroviruses go to a lot of trouble to replicate themselves in our cells and further their infectious cycle. The human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1), the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is a good example. HIV-1 is an RNA virus that must synthesize DNA from its RNA genome, transport its DNA into the nucleus, transcribe it back to RNA, transport the new RNA out of the nucleus again, and then make proteins from the RNA that will be assembled with new viral RNA genomes and released from the cell as new infectious particles. While the molecular details of many of these steps are known, one mystery that remains is how HIV-1 recognizes and fishes out its own RNA from among all the other RNAs in the nucleus, an essential step in viral replication.