Abstract

Many viruses carry more than one segment of nucleic acid into the virion particle, but retroviruses are the only known group of viruses that contain two identical (or nearly identical) copies of the RNA genome within the virion. These RNA genomes are non-covalently joined together through a process known as genomic RNA dimerization. Uniquely, the RNA dimerization of the retroviral genome is of crucial importance for efficient retroviral replication. In this article, our current understanding of the relationship between retroviral genome conformation, dimerization and replication is reviewed.

Author affiliations

1. UPR 9002 du CNRS affiliée à l'Université Louis Pasteur, Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France.
2. Macfarlane Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public Health, Melbourne 3004, Victoria, Australia.
3. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Victoria, Australia.
4. J.-C.P. and M.S.-X. contributed equally to this work.

Correspondence to: Roland Marquet¹ Email: r.marquet@ibmc.u-strasbg.fr

Correspondence to: Johnson Mak^2,3 Email: mak@burnet.edu.au

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