Special Issue "Retroviral Enzymes"
A special issue of Viruses (ISSN 1999-4915). This special issue belongs to the section "Animal Viruses".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2009) | Viewed by 219033
Special Issue Editor
Interests: HIV; reverse transcription; drug resistance; genetic variation; proteolytic processing; HIV protease
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The retroviral RNA genome encodes for three enzymes essential for virus replication: (i) the viral protease (PR), that converts the immature virion into a mature virus through the cleavage of precursor polypeptides; (ii) the reverse transcriptase (RT), responsible for the conversion of the single-stranded genomic RNA into double-stranded proviral DNA; and (iii) the integrase (IN) that inserts the proviral DNA into the host cell genome. All of them are important targets for therapeutic intervention. Knowledge on their structure and mechanism of action should help us to design better drugs against AIDS and other diseases caused by retroviruses.
Dr. Luis Menéndez-Arias
Guest Editor
Keywords
- aspartyl-proteases
- reverse transcription
- integration
- virus maturation
- antiretroviral drugs
- drug targets
- viral mutation and variability