Study of early stages of HIV-1 budding

Formation of immature HIV shells at the cell membrane as the virus buds is unique in that the assembly and budding occur at the same time. The initiation of the budding process is characterized by the interaction between viral protein subunits and the cell membrane. While the important components of the formation and budding process of immature HIV were identified through various experimental observation, little is known about the underlying mechanisms such as the protein aggregation, protein-membrane interaction and formation of the spherical virion. We investigate these mechanisms using computational mechanical stress model. Using triangular discretization of the membrane coupled with the appropriate energy potentials, the protein-membrane related interactions are represented using molecular dynamics simulations. Simulation results show that the protein rigidity and preferred dihedral angle between protein subunits, characterized by Foppl von Karman number, have crucial impact on the dynamics of budding of HIV immature particles.