Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 44
Group VI Viruses:
Single-Stranded RNA Reverse
Transcriptase Viruses with a
DNA Intermediate in Life-Cycle
“The origin of retroviruses is lost in a prebiotic mist.”
Patric Jern, Goran Sperber, Jonas Blomberg [121]
Group I, dsDNA (Chapter 39)
Group II, ssDNA (Chapter 40)
Group III, dsRNA (Chapter 41)
Group IV (
)ssRNA (Chapter 42)
1
Group V (
)ssRNA (Chapter 43)
Group VI, ssRNA-RT (Chapter 44)
Retroviridae
Deltaretrovirus
*Human T-cell lymphotropic viruses
Lentivirus
*Human immunodeficiency virus
Group VII, dsDNA-RT (Chapter 45)
Prions (Chapter 46)
2
Single-stranded RNA viruses can be positive sense or negative sense. Positive
sense RNA, for example eukaryotic mRNA and Group IV viruses, can be
directly translated to produce protein. Negative sense RNA is complementary to
mRNA. Negative sense RNA must be copy-converted to positive sense RNA
or to DNA before it becomes biologically available for translation or replication,
respectively.
The Group VI viruses (Chapter 44) are single-stranded negative sense
RNA viruses that use an RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (so-called reverse
transcriptase), packaged within the virus particle, to produce a complementary
