Blog Post Image: Watching HIV Bud from Cells

The top row shows, left to right, red-labeled protein molecules named Gag (shown here in black and white) assembling to form a new HIV particle that buds from a human cell grown in the laboratory. The bottom row shows the same process but with proteins named ALIX labeled green (also in black and white). Together, the two sequences (minutes and seconds shown at top) show how ALIX gets involved late in the process as Gag assembles to form a new particle of HIV, which causes AIDS. That finding of a new University of Utah study contradicts earlier research that had suggested ALIX gets involved at an earlier stage in the HIV budding process. Photo Credit: Pei-I Ku, University of Utah