title: The sense behind retroviral anti-sense transcription.
abstract: Retroviruses are known to rely extensively on the expression of viral proteins from the sense proviral genomic strand. Yet, the production of regulatory retroviral proteins from antisense-encoded viral genes is gaining research attention, due to their clinical significance. This report will discuss what is known about antisense transcription in Retroviridae, and provide new information about antisense transcriptional regulation through a comparison of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Human T-cell Lymphotrophic Virus (HTLV-1) and endogenous retrovirus-K (ERVK) long terminal repeats (LTRs). We will attempt to demonstrate that the potential for antisense transcription is more widespread within retroviruses than has been previously appreciated, with this feature being the rule, rather than the exception.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
authors.forename: Mamneet
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Manghera
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada.
authors.forename: Alycia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Magnusson
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. r.douville@uwinnipeg.ca.|Department of Biology, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, MB, Canada. r.douville@uwinnipeg.ca.
authors.forename: Renée N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Douville
mesh_terms: D020077:Endogenous Retroviruses / Q000235:genetics*; D015967:Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; D006678:HIV / Q000235:genetics*; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D012190:Retroviridae; D014158:Transcription, Genetic
keywords: Antisense transcription; Conserved protein domains; Human endogenous retrovirus-K; Long-terminal repeat (LTR); Retrovirus; Transcription factors; Viral genomes