Kinetic mechanism of viral RNA selective packaging by HIV-1

Human immunodeficiency retrovirus (HIV-1) is known to package its full length viral RNA (vRNA) dimer with exceptionally high >90% selectivity, despite of the extremely low () fraction of vRNA in the cytoplasm of infected cell. While ∼150nt-long packaging signal (Psi) of HIV-1 vRNA was identified, no strong Gag binding preference sufficient of vRNA selective packaging was ever observed either in vitro or in cells. We propose kinetic model of selective HIV-1 vRNA dimer packaging based on extensive body of available experimental data.