Background of the antigen
HIV1 performs highly complex orchestrated tasks during the assembly, budding, maturation and infection stages of the viral replication cycle. During viral assembly, the proteins form membrane associations and self-associations that ultimately result in budding of an immature virion from the infected cell. Gag precursors also function during viral assembly to selectively bind and package two plus strands of genomic RNA. HIV1 Gag p17, the HIV1 matrix protein is produced by the digestion of its precursor Gag p55 by HIV1 protease.
