The morphology of the immature HIV-1 virion.
Newly released HIV-1 particles exhibit an immature morphology, previously reported to be characterized by a doughnut/ring-shaped structure. In this study we showed that among immature extracellular virus particles not only were particles with doughnut-shaped morphology present, but particles with a crescent morphology were also observed. These particles occurred with different frequencies, depending on whether they were in the cell or in cell-free fractions. The crescent-shaped particles were more abundant in the cell-free fractions, whereas the particles in the cell fraction mainly exhibited doughnut-shaped morphology. The crescent-shaped structure may represent an assembly intermediate.
Ohagen
A
A
Department of Biochemistry, Biomedical Center, Uppsala, Sweden. asa@totem.bm-c.uu.se
Luftig
R B
RB
Reicin
A S
AS
Yin
L
L
Ikuta
K
K
Kimura
T
T
Goff
S P
SP
Höglund
S
S
D002461:Cell Line, Transformed; D015497:HIV-1 / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006801:Humans; D014771:Virion / Q000648:ultrastructure