SIV envelope acquires a nefarious habit.
Deletion of the nef gene from macaque simian immunodeficiency virus (SIVmac) attenuates its ability to cause disease. Pathogenic viruses occasionally emerge in macaques infected with Nef-deleted SIVmac, with some genetic determinants mapping to the envelope (env) gene. An intriguing new study shows that these changes endow Env with a Nef-like ability to counteract tetherin/BST2 (Serra-Moreno et al., 2011).
Department of Infectious Disease, King's College London School of Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London, SE1 9RT, UK. stuart.neil@kcl.ac.uk
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