back to Molecular Biology Homepage

back to Objectives and Outlines Page

HIV-1 Reverse Transcription

Announcements:

• Lunch today (noon) in the Olin Lounge with Mary Keir, this afternoon's seminar speaker and a Lewis & Clark alum. If you didn't get a chance to sign up, feel free to stop by anyway. This would be a great opportunity to ask grad school questions of a current doctoral student.
• Seminar at 4 pm, Miller 105: "Interferon-alpha secretion in HIV-1-infected thymus alters thymic selection."
• Week 12 lab data are online
• Week 12 lab reports are due by the beginning of lab this Wednesday, regardless of your group's hands-on schedule for the week
• Our last outside reading, "HIV-1 genome nuclear import is mediated by a central DNA flap," is on reserve at Watzek and should go online soon. Scanned versions of the photography figures are online at our website. I'll post the related homework assignment today or tomorrow, and it will be due at our reading discussion next Monday, 12/11.

Learning objectives for Mon 12/4/00

Students should be able to…

1. explain the "central paradox" of reverse transcription: what it is, how it arises, and how it must be overcome
2. list and explain four properties or activities of HIV-1's reverse transcriptase. Explain the importance of each of these four properties in the process of reverse transcription and/or in the life cycle of HIV-1.
3. diagram and explain the mechanism of reverse transcription of the HIV-1 genome, as it is currently understood

Supplemental figures for today

organization of the proviral HIV genome (from Field's Virology, 3rd edition)

structural comparison of HIV's reverse transcriptase with an E. coli DNA polymerase fragment (from Annual Review of Biochemistry, 1994)

mechanism of reverse transcription (fig 5 from your "chapter" reading)

amended mechanism of reverse transcription, including central DNA flap (from Charneau et al, "HIV-1 Reverse Transcription: a termination step at the center of the genome." JMB (1994) 241, 651-662.

back to Objectives and Outlines Page

back to Molecular Biology Homepage