Disease relevance of pol

• Two conserved regions among the retrovirus pol genes have been reported [1].
• We describe here a complementation system in which the retroviral gag/pol and env gene products were expressed independently from different plasmids under the control of the bacteriophage T7 promoter, in avian cells [2].

High impact information on pol

• On the coding strand, imperfect open reading frames corresponding to gag and pol of the retrovirus genome were observed, whereas many stop codons were present in the region corresponding to env [1].
• Upon reinsertion of CTE in the original genomic position of clones with the deleted or displaced CTE, virus replication, Gag/Pol protein production, and nucleocytoplasmic transport of viral mRNA were restored to normal levels [3].
• Displacement of CTE to the 5' UTR immediately upstream of the Gag initiation codon also resulted in aberrant Gag/Pol protein production and nucleocytoplasmic transport of viral RNA [3].
• Reinsertion of CTE at the original genomic position of the clone with CTE displacement at the 5' UTR restored normal Gag/Pol protein production and RNA transport, demonstrating that the 3' terminal position of CTE is important for its function [3].

Biological context of pol

• A test of these molecular clones in a single round of replication assay revealed that deletion or displacement of CTE in the intervening sequences between pol and env completely abrogated virus replication [3].

References