DescriptionSimian Retrovirus type 1 (SRV-1) is a D-type retrovirus, characterized as the possible causal agent of the Immunodeficiency syndrome in macaques (Power et al. 1986). This retrovirus belongs to the genus Betaretrovirus, which is comprised of both B- and D-type retroviruses. In this regard, D-type betaretroviruses present a common surface receptor also utilized by the baboon and cat endogenous C-type gammaretroviruses (BaEVM, RD114). Cellular infection by any of them can interfere with other D-type members, and also with BaEVM and RD114 (Chatterjee and Hunter 1980; Sommerfelt and Weiss 1990). This evidence seems to be related with the high similarity displayed between env polyproteins encoded by gammaretroviruses and D-type betaretroviruses, indicating that betaretroviruses and gammaretroviruses may have been involved in an ancient recombinatorial event (Sonigo et al. 1986; Fauquet et al. 2005) or that they share a common ancestor (see env tree in section "phylogenies"). At the genome structure level SRV-1 is 8.2 Kb size including LTRs of 346 nt. The internal region of this retrovirus displays a primer binding site (PBS) complementary to a tRNALys; Open Reading Frames (ORFs) for gag, dut/pr, pol, and env genes and a Polypurine Tract (PPT), adjacent to the 3´LTR. Both LTRs of SRV-1 display a small ORF called sorf (Power et al. 1986; Elder et al. 1992; Payne and Elder 2001), which is also displayed in MPMV as a three-domain ORF. We also have found that SRV-1 also presents a putative accessory gene Orf-x that is common among many other betaretroviruses, and that was originally described in JSRV betaretroviruses (Bai et al. 1999; Rosati et al. 2000). Structure
Related literature |
|
Llorens, C., Futami, R., Covelli, L., Dominguez-Escriba, L., Viu, J.M., Tamarit, D., Aguilar-Rodriguez, J. Vicente-Ripolles, M., Fuster, G., Bernet, G.P., Maumus, F., Munoz-Pomer, A., Sempere, J.M., LaTorre, A., Moya, A. (2011) The Gypsy Database (GyDB) of Mobile Genetic Elements: Release 2.0 Nucleic Acids Research (NARESE) 39 (suppl 1): D70-D74 doi: 10.1093/nar/gkq1061