Structural and Mechanistic Advances in Retroviral Biology
A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Human Virology and Viral Diseases".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2026 | Viewed by 8
Special Issue Editors
Interests: host–virus interactions; high-resolution structural virology in situ
Interests: host–viral interface; viral mechanisms for hijacking host translation machinery; host and viral RNA modifications
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Retroviruses have impacted every aspect of human existence—from being agents of evolution to causing devastating pandemics. Approximately 8% of our genome is estimated to be a result of ancient infections by Human Endogenous Retroviruses (HERVs). The impact of HERVs on our physiology is an area of active research. The AIDS pandemic triggered by HIV-1 continues to be a significant threat to public health, with an estimated 1.3 million new infections worldwide in 2024. An intense and comprehensive research effort in understanding HIV-1 life cycle over the past three decades has yielded life-saving treatments to contain the AIDS pandemic, yet the search for a vaccine and a cure for HIV-1 remains ongoing. This continued effort underscores the importance of studying other clinically relevant retroviruses, such as HTLV-1, an oncogenic retrovirus affecting an estimated 10 million people worldwide. Finally, much has been learned from the investigation of a broad range of retroviruses, regardless of their clinical relevance or host, including fundamental principles of cellular biology and pathogenesis.
The advent of cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM) has revolutionized structural biology and has led to several major discoveries in retroviral biology in recent years, most notably in retroviral capsid assembly and maturation, the elucidation of IP6 as a critical cofactor in retroviral life cycles, and understanding the mechanism of antiretroviral drugs. Recent advances in instrumentation and methodologies have led to the development of ‘in situ cryoEM’, allowing researchers to gain unprecedented structural insights into retroviral life cycles in the native cellular milieu. In this Special Issue, we would like to highlight the latest structural and mechanistic advances in retroviral biology. Structural and mechanistic studies focused on all retroviruses are welcome. Emphasis will be given to studies that leverage a range of structural biology techniques—including single-particle and in situ cryoEM approaches, X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry—to deepen our understanding of retroviral architectures, dynamics, and functions.
We invite the submission of all article types for this Special Issue—research articles, short reports, and in-depth reviews. We look forward to your valuable contributions and showcasing the most exciting and novel findings on retroviruses.
Prof. Dr. Yong Xiong
Dr. Swapnil Chandrakant Devarkar
Dr. Luiza Mendonca
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- retroviruses
- capsid structure and assembly
- host-viral interactions
- in situ cryo EM
- reverse transcription
- integration
- genome packaging
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