Reverse transcriptase
From Proteopedia
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Being the protein that gives their name to Retroviruses, Reverse Transcriptase is, in company of Hiv protease and Hiv integrase, the most important part of the protein system involved in the process of infection of viruses like HIV-1, MuLV and AMV, and has the unusual property of transcribing ssRNA into dsDNA going against the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology. Since its discovery in 1970, the study of its properties and mechanisms of action have been of high interest among the scientific community due to the unique properties that makes it an important medical target enzyme.
Structure
This hand-like protein that has an usual length of 1000 residues(560 in Chain A and 440 for B), the third of them involved in alpha helical and almost a quarter in beta sheets α + β domains; chain A with an usual weight of 65KDa contains the two actives sites and has the most conserved aminoacids, whereas chain B is around 50KDa and has more variable areas, result of drug resistant and function related evolution. [1]
Function
RNA-dependent DNA Polymerase
See Also
- Molecule of the Month (09/2002) at RCSB PDB
- List of Reverse Transcriptase articles at Proteopedia and at RCSB PDB
- Reverse Transcriptase at Wikipedia
Proteopedia Page Contributors and Editors (what is this?)
Michal Harel, Daniel Moyano-Marino, Joel L. Sussman, Alexander Berchansky, David Canner, Amol Kapoor, Jaime Prilusky, Brian Foley, Lynmarie K Thompson, Eric Martz
