We investigated the role of 5 untranslated leader sequences of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV mac239 ) in RNA encapsidation and protein expression. A series of progressively longer deletion mutants was constructed with a common endpoint six nucleotides upstream of the gag initiation codon and another endpoint at the 3 end of the primer binding site (PBS). We found that efficient intracellular Gag-Pol protein accumulation required the region between the PBS and splice donor (SD) site. Marked reduction of genomic RNA packaging was observed with all the deletion mutants that involved sequences at both the 5 and at the 3 ends of the major SD site, and increased nonspecific RNA incorporation could be detected in these mutants. RNA encapsidation was affected only modestly by a deletion of 54 nucleotides at the 3 end of the SD site when the mutant construct p⌬54 was transfected alone. In contrast, the amount of p⌬54 genomic RNA incorporated into particles was reduced more than 10-fold when this mutant was cotransfected with a construct specifying an RNA molecule with a wild-type packaging signal. Therefore, we conclude that the 175 nucleotides located 5 of the gag initiation codon are critical for efficient and selective incorporation of genomic RNA into virions. This location of the SIV ⌿ element provides the means for efficient discrimination between viral genomic and spliced RNAs.The 5Ј untranslated leader of retroviruses is involved in a variety of functions that affect different steps of the retrovirus life cycle. Among these are RNA elongation, RNA splicing, protein translation, genomic RNA dimerization and packaging, and initiation of reverse transcription (5,9,17,18,24,27,29). While RNA elongation, RNA splicing, and initiation of reverse transcription are associated with short and well-defined sequences, RNA translation and packaging elements are distributed over longer sequences that are less well defined in length and structure.Packaging of retroviral RNAs involves the selective encapsidation of an unspliced genomic RNA dimer into the virion (12, 34). For many retroviruses, critical portions of the packaging signal (⌿) have been mapped between the major splice donor (SD) site and the gag initiation codon (12,34). This location of ⌿ permits discrimination between full-length genomic RNA and subgenomic RNA species during the packaging process (25,32,37). RNA incorporation occurs via interactions between the cis-acting elements, which are located in the 5Ј untranslated RNA leader, and the trans-acting