Lentivirus particles are distinguished by the presence of a bullet-shaped capsid (orange) assembled from monomers of the viral capsid protein (CA). The cone is a hollow "fullerene cone" built up from CA hexamers (Movie 3) assembled together with twelve CA pentamers. [1]
- ↑ Ganser BK, Li S, Klishko VY, Finch JT, Sundquist WI. 1999. Assembly and Analysis of Conical Models for the HIV-1 Core. Science 283: 80-83.
A hexamer of CA protein