Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40431700›Full record

ReviewViruses2025

How HIV-1 Uses the Metabolite Inositol Hexakisphosphate to Build Its Capsid.

Leo C James

Abstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Viruses, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Review
  3. Retroviruses use different IPNature communications · 2026
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Leo C JamesMRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Francis Crick Avenue, Cambridge CB2 0QH, UK.

Funding

Medical Research Council U105181010Welcome Trust 214344/A/18/ZWellcome Trust 200594/Z/16/ZWellcome Trust 223054
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The HIV-1 capsid is one of virology's most iconic structures, yet how it assembles has long remained elusive. Remarkably, the capsid is made from just a single protein, CA, which forms a lattice of ~250 hexamers and exactly 12 pentamers. Conical capsids form inside budded virions during maturation, but early efforts to reproduce this in vitro resulted instead in open-ended tubes with a purely hexameric lattice. The missing component in capsid assembly was finally identified as the metabolite inositol hexakisphosphate (IP6). Simply mixing soluble CA protein with IP6 is sufficient to drive the spontaneous assembly of conical capsids with a similar size and shape to those inside of infectious virions. Equally important, IP6 stabilises capsids once formed, increasing their stability from minutes to hours. Indeed, such is the dependence of HIV-1 on IP6 that the virus actively packages it into virions during production. These discoveries have stimulated work from multiple labs into the role and importance of IP6 in HIV-1 replication, and is the subject of this review.

Indexed as

CapsidHIV-1Phytic AcidVirus AssemblyCapsid ProteinsHIV InfectionsHumansVirionVirus ReplicationCapsid ProteinsPhytic AcidcapsidHIV-1IP6retrovirusesstructurevirus assemblyvirus replication

Identifiers

PMID40431700
PMCPMC12115385

What Socratic holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.