Retrovirology Review BioMed Central Open Access When is it time for reverse transcription to start and go? Marylène Mougel1, Laurent Houzet2 and Jean-Luc Darlix*3 Address: 1Université Montpellier 1, Centre d'études d'agents Pathogènes et Biotechnologies pour la Santé (CPBS), CNRS, UMR 5236, CPBS, 4 Bd Henri IV, CS69033, 34965 Montpellier, France, 2Molecular Virology Section, Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA and 3LaboRetro, Unité de virologie humaine INSERM U758, IFR128, ENS, 46 allée d'Italie, Lyon, France Email: Marylène Mougel - ; Laurent Houzet - houzetl@; Jean-Luc Darlix* - jldarlix@ * Corresponding author Published: 4 March 2009. | Retrovirology BioMed Central Review When is it time for reverse transcription to start and go Marylène Mougel1 Laurent Houzet2 and Jean-Luc Darlix 3 Open Access Address 1Université Montpellier 1 Centre d études d agents Pathogènes et Biotechnologies pour la Santé CPBS CNRS UMR 5236 CPBS 4 Bd Henri IV CS69033 34965 Montpellier France 2Molecular Virology Section Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases National Institutes of Health Bethesda Maryland 20892 USA and 3LaboRetro Unité de virologie humaine INSERM U758 IFR128 ENS 46 allée d Italie Lyon France Email Marylène Mougel - Laurent Houzet - houzetl@ Jean-Luc Darlix - jldarlix@ Corresponding author Published 4 March 2009 Received 12 January 2009 Accepted 4 March 2009 Retrovirology 2009 6 24 doi l 742-4690-6-24 This article is available from http content 6 1 24 2009 Mougel et al licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Upon cell infection by a retrovirus the viral DNA polymerase called reverse transcriptase RT copies the genomic RNA to generate the proviral DNA flanked by two long terminal repeats LTR . A discovery twenty years ago demonstrated that the structural viral nucleocapsid protein NC encoded by Gag is an essential cofactor of reverse transcription chaperoning RT during viral DNA synthesis. However it is only recently that NC was found to exert a control on the timing of reverse transcription in a spatio-temporal manner. This brief review summarizes findings on the timing of reverse transcription in wild type HIV-1 and in nucleopcapsid NC mutants where virions contain a large amount of newly made viral DNA. This brief
