Avian retroviral replication

Retroviral Replication

The retroviruses (the taxonomic family Retroviridae) comprise isolates of vertebrates, but elements with hallmarks of retroviruses are also found elsewhere, e.g. in insects. Retroviruses exemplify a variety of specialized interactions with their hosts, including induction of many kinds of diseases under laboratory conditions as well as in domestic and wild animals. In contrast to this variation...

Delivery of short hairpin RNA sequences by using a replication-competent avian retroviral vector.

While recent studies have demonstrated that retroviral vectors can be used to stably express short hairpin RNA (shRNA) to inhibit gene expression, these studies have utilized replication-defective retroviruses. We describe the creation of a replication-competent, Gateway-compatible retroviral vector capable of expressing shRNA that inhibits the expression of specific genes.

Retroviral Vector by Using a Replication-Competent Avian Delivery of Short Hairpin RNA Sequences

Reverse Transcriptase and Retroviral Replication

Within each viral particle, retroviruses package two copies of a single-stranded RNA genome of about 10 kb. All of the viral genomes contain three major genes, arranged in the order: 5 ́-gag–pol–env-3 ́, and some retroviruses may also have accessory genes (e.g. vif, vpr, tax, etc...). Structural proteins such as MA (matrix protein), CA (capsid protein) and NC (nucleocapsid protein) are encoded wi...

A minimal avian retroviral packaging sequence has a complex structure.

We have defined a 160-nucleotide region, Mpsi, from the 5' leader region of the Rous sarcoma virus genome that is sufficient to direct the packaging of a heterologous RNA. Mpsi contains the putative O3 stem structure that has previously been shown, and that has been confirmed in this study, to be important for the efficient packaging of avian leukosis-sarcoma virus RNA. Analyses of several O3 s...