Figure 8.

Model of how RHA is enhancing RT's reverse transcription efficiency. A, in the absence of RHA, RT (orange) falls off the template on residues involved in RNA secondary structures and protein-bound regions. These RT pauses result in early terminated cDNA products (referred as pause products in Fig. 3C). B, RHA (purple) unwinds RNA secondary structures in a 3′ to 5′ manner and subsequently remove proteins, such as NC (green), on the template. RT remains on the RNA template as reverse transcription progresses. As a result, the processivity of RT is enhanced, and the extension efficiency is increased.