Abstract
The past 5 years have brought an exciting and very unexpected solution to a longstanding question in retrovirology: the mechanism of expression of the pol gene. Since the earliest studies of retroviral gene expression, the mechanism by which pol, the gene that encodes the critical enzymes reverse transcriptase, integrase, and sometimes protease, acts had remained an enigma. Experiments carried out recently seem to have finally settled this issue, as the pol genes of several retroviruses and one retrotransposon have been shown to be expressed by one or another form of translational suppression. This solution to the problem of pol gene expression is as unexpected as it is unusual. Even 5 year ago there was general agreement in this field that mRNA splicing would ultimately be found to be responsible for expression of the pol functions.
This work is supported by a Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation
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Keywords
- Bovine Leukemia Virus
- Infectious Bronchitis Virus
- Translational Suppression
- Equine Infectious Anemia Virus
- Termination Suppression
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Jacks, T. (1990). Translational Suppression in Gene Expression in Retroviruses and Retrotransposons. In: Swanstrom, R., Vogt, P.K. (eds) Retroviruses. Current Topics in Microbiology and Immunology, vol 157. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-75218-6_4
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