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The genome and proteins of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) have been the subject of extensive research since the discovery of the virus in 1983. [1] [2] "In the search for the causative agent, it was initially believed that the virus was a form of the Human T-cell leukemia virus (HTLV), which was known at the time to affect the human immune system and cause certain leukemias.
HIV-1 protease or PR is a retroviral aspartyl protease (retropepsin), an enzyme involved with peptide bond hydrolysis in retroviruses, that is essential for the life-cycle of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. [1][2] HIV-1 PR cleaves newly synthesized polyproteins (namely, Gag and Gag- Pol [3]) at nine cleavage sites to create the mature ...
C-C chemokine receptor type 5, also known as CCR5 or CD195, is a protein on the surface of white blood cells that is involved in the immune system as it acts as a receptor for chemokines. [ 5 ] In humans, the CCR5 gene that encodes the CCR5 protein is located on the short (p) arm at position 21 on chromosome 3.
HIV-2 is much less pathogenic than HIV-1 and is restricted in its worldwide distribution to West Africa. The adoption of "accessory genes" by HIV-2 and its more promiscuous pattern of co-receptor usage (including CD4-independence) may assist the virus in its adaptation to avoid innate restriction factors present in host cells. Adaptation to use ...
Rev is a transactivating protein that is essential to the regulation of HIV-1 (and other lentiviral) protein expression.A nuclear localization signal is encoded in the rev gene, which allows the Rev protein to be localized to the nucleus, where it is involved in the export of unspliced and incompletely spliced mRNAs.
Innate resistance to HIV. A small proportion of humans show partial or apparently complete innate resistance to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. [1] The main mechanism is a mutation of the gene encoding CCR5, which acts as a co-receptor for HIV. It is estimated that the proportion of people with some form of resistance to HIV is under 10%.
A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to convert RNA genome to DNA, a process termed reverse transcription.Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, by retrotransposon mobile genetic elements to proliferate within the host genome, and by eukaryotic cells to extend the telomeres at the ends of their linear chromosomes.
A protease is any enzyme that cuts proteins into segments. HIV's gag and pol genes do not produce their proteins in their final form, but as larger combination proteins; the specific protease used by HIV cleaves these into separate functional units.