Questions answered

A couple of good questions came up in class today.  Here are answers to some of them.

1. HIV reverse transcription: does it result in double or single stranded DNA? Here's a great animation with more details of HIV replication.  Thanks Toan.  (The answer is that two rounds of transcription lead to double stranded DNA that gets integrated into the host genome.)

2. Are there relatives of HIV that infect species other than primates?  On Thursday we'll learn about SIV, but there are other lentiviruses that infect cats (FIV), cows (BIV), goats (CAEV), sheep (Visna), and horses (EIAV).  More info on these here.

If anyone finds more interesting info about the state of current research in HIV treatment, feel free to let us know by posting a comment.