An arginine-rich peptide from the Jembrana disease virus (JDV) Tat protein is a structural ''chameleon'' that binds bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV) or HIV TAR RNAs in two different binding modes, with an affinity for BIV TAR even higher than the cognate BIV peptide. We determined the NMR structure of the JDV Tat-BIV TAR high-affinity complex and found that the C-terminal tyrosine in JDV Tat forms a network of inter-and intramolecular hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions that simultaneously stabilize the -hairpin conformation of the peptide and a base triple in the RNA. A neighboring histidine also appears to help stabilize the peptide conformation. Induced fit binding is recurrent in protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, and the JDV Tat complex demonstrates how high affinity can be achieved not only by optimization of the binding interface but also by inducing new intramolecular contacts that stabilize each binding partner. Comparison to the cognate BIV Tat peptide-TAR complex shows how such a costabilization mechanism can evolve with only small changes to the peptide sequence. In addition, the bound structure of BIV TAR in the chameleon peptide complex is strikingly similar to the bound conformation of HIV TAR, suggesting new strategies for the development of HIV TAR binding molecules.NMR ͉ RNA structure ͉ RNA-binding domain T he ability of macromolecules to interact with high affinity and specificity is often accompanied by conformational changes in the binding partners (1-4). Flexibility of one or both molecules can contribute to optimization of the binding surfaces and allow binding to multiple partners (5, 6). Numerous examples of conformational adaptability have been observed in protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, including Ig proteins, which can accommodate a remarkably wide range of binding partners, and the ribosome, where induced-fit binding helps direct its ordered assembly (7-9).In RNA-protein interactions, the arginine-rich motif (ARM) has served as a model system for examining structural mechanisms that underlie induced fit binding (10-12). Studies of ARM peptide-RNA complexes, including the Tat ARM-TAR RNA interactions of several lentiviruses, have shown that the unbound ARMs generally are unfolded and can adopt a variety of conformations upon RNA binding, often with a concomitant change in RNA structure. In the case of HIV Tat, a relatively weak binding ARM peptide remains in an extended conformational when bound to HIV TAR but causes a large conformational change in the RNA, inducing stacking between the two helical stems and formation of a U-A:U base triple (13-23). In the case of bovine immunodeficiency virus (BIV) Tat, a conformational change in BIV TAR also is observed upon binding, but the cognate ARM peptide undergoes a large conformational rearrangement, forming a -hairpin structure that facilitates high-affinity binding through a large set of specific contacts to the RNA (24-29). Despite the striking difference in binding modes of these two...