title: Viral tRNAs and tRNA-like structures.
abstract: Viruses commonly exploit or modify some aspect of tRNA biology. Large DNA viruses, especially bacteriophages, phycodnaviruses, and mimiviruses, produce their own tRNAs, apparently to adjust translational capacity during infection. Retroviruses recruit specific host tRNAs for use in priming the reverse transcription of their genome. Certain positive-strand RNA plant viral genomes possess 3'-tRNA-like structures (TLSs) that are built quite differently from authentic tRNAs, and yet efficiently recapitulate several properties of tRNAs. The structures and roles of these TLSs are discussed, emphasizing the variety in both structure and function.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Center for Genome Research and Bioinformatics, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. theo.dreher@oregonstate.edu
authors.forename: Theo W
authors.initials: TW
authors.lastname: Dreher
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016679:Genome, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009690:Nucleic Acid Conformation; D010942:Plant Viruses / Q000235:genetics; D012343:RNA, Transfer / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D048348:Reverse Transcription / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral; D012343:RNA, Transfer