Open AccessEfficient Human Immunodeficiency Virus Replication Requires a Fine-Tuned Level of Transcription
Author(s) -
Giuseppe Marzio,
Monique Vink,
Koen Verhoef,
Anthony de Ronde,
Ben Berkhout
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.617
H-Index - 292
eISSN - 1070-6321
pISSN - 0022-538X
DOI - 10.1128/jvi.76.6.3084-3088.2002
Subject(s) - biology , long terminal repeat , transcription (linguistics) , viral replication , hiv long terminal repeat , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , virology , virus , viral life cycle , replication (statistics) , promoter , genetics , gene , gene expression , linguistics , philosophy
Transcription represents a crucial step in the life cycle of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and is highly regulated. Here we show that the strength of the viral long terminal repeat (LTR) promoter is optimized for efficient replication. Artificially increasing the rate of LTR-driven transcription was strongly detrimental for viral fitness, and HIV was able to regain replication capacity by selecting for variants with a weaker LTR. Strikingly, the strength of the evolved promoter was equivalent to that of the wild-type LTR.