Kun Lu

TL;DR: Efforts to identify the molecular determinants and mechanism of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 genome packaging are reviewed.

TL;DR: A nuclear magnetic resonance approach was developed that enabled direct detection of structural elements within the intact leader that are critical for genome packaging and support a packaging mechanism in which translation, dimerization, NC binding, and packaging are regulated by a common RNA structural switch.

TL;DR: The structure shows how the 5′ leader binds to the HIV protein that directs packaging, how unspliced dimeric genomes are selected for packaging, and how translation is suppressed when the genome dimerizes.

TL;DR: Methods that have been developed for preparing and purifying isotopically labeled RNAs, as well as NMR strategies that have be employed for signal assignment and structure determination are reviewed.

TL;DR: This work generated HIV-1 5'-L RNAs containing mutations and deletions designed to eliminate substructures without perturbing the overall structure of the leader and examined effects of the mutations on RNA dimerization, NC binding, and packaging.