Budding

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The final step of seven steps in the HIV life cycle. During budding, immature (noninfectious) HIV pushes itself out of the host CD4 cell. (Noninfectious HIV can't infect another CD4 cell.) Once outside the CD4 cell, the new HIV releases protease, an HIV enzyme. Protease breaks up the long protein chains in the immature virus, creating the mature (infectious) virus.

Related Term(s)
Life Cycle
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Graph of the Budding step in the HIV life cycle, where HIV pushes itself out of the host CD4 cell.
Life cycle of HIV: 1) cell binding, 2) fusion, 3) reverse transcription, 4) Integration, 5) replication, 6) assembly, and 7) budding out.

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