Abstract
Retroviruses generally integrate as proviruses which are flanked by long-terminal repeats (LTRs) on both 5' and 3' ends. Since these LTRs are required for the efficient integration mediated by the viral integrase, it is believed that defective proviruses with a single LTR are normally formed by deletion after integration. However, we found no deletion of cellular sequences around the integration site of such a defective HTLV-1. Rather, we identified 99 bp-long direct repeats adjacent to both ends of the defective provirus. The repeated cellular sequences contained a potential poly(A) signal followed by a retroviral primer-binding-site-like sequence. The presence of the direct repeats of cellular sequences can be explained by the integration of the defective virus through homologous recombination between cellular and viral read-through sequences.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2873-2877 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Oncogene |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| Publication status | Published - 1993 |
| Externally published | Yes |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Cancer Research
