Reverse transcriptase is an important factor for the primer tRNA selection in HIV-1.
During assembly, HIV-1 selectively packages tRNA(Lys3), the primer tRNA for reverse transcriptase (RT). Because of tRNA(Lys3)'s ability to interact with RT, RT may be the viral protein which binds to primer tRNA and carries it into the virus. We have tested this hypothesis by measuring 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 type virus (which contains 8 molecules tRNA(Lys3)/virus), and the tRNA found tightly associated with the RNA genome is also greatly reduced in these mutant virus.