Weiss, RA;
(2006)
The discovery of endogenous retroviruses.
Retrovirology
, 3
, Article 67. 10.1186/1742-4690-3-67.
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Abstract
When endogenous retroviruses (ERV) were discovered in the late 1960s, the Mendelian inheritance of retroviral genomes by their hosts was an entirely new concept. Indeed Howard M Temin's DNA provirus hypothesis enunciated in 1964 was not generally accepted, and reverse transcriptase was yet to be discovered. Nonetheless, the evidence that we accrued in the pre-molecular era has stood the test of time, and our hypothesis on ERV, which one reviewer described as 'impossible', proved to be correct. Here I recount some of the key observations in birds and mammals that led to the discovery of ERV, and comment on their evolution, cross-species dispersion, and what remains to be elucidated.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The discovery of endogenous retroviruses |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/1742-4690-3-67 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-3-67 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2006 Weiss; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Rous sarcoma virus, Avian-leukosis virus, Murine leukemia-virus, Dependent DNA polymerase, RNA tumor-viruses, Mammary-tumor, Reticuloendotheliosis-virus, Cellular susceptibility, Envelope protein, Genetic control |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Medical Sciences > Div of Infection and Immunity |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/125995 |
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