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Science 6 April 2001:
Vol. 292. no. 5514, p. 9
DOI: 10.1126/science.292.5514.9n
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Examining human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1) transcripts in virus-producing cells, Bourara et al. (Reports, 1 Sept. 2000, p. 1564) observed cytosine-to-uracil (C-to-U) and guanine-to-adenine (G-to-A) changes that they attributed to post-transcriptional RNA editing. In a comment, Berkhout et al., focusing in particular on the G-to-A event observed by Bourara et al. at site 181, argue that "known editing mechanisms ... cannot easily explain" some of the observed changes and propose "an alternative mechanistic model" based on error-prone HIV-1 reverse transcription to account for those changes. Araya and Litvak, in their response, suggest that the Berkhout et al. model is implausible because it requires multiple events with a low cumulative probability. They further argue that the fact that changes were observed only in "transcripts generated by transcription-competent provirus," and not in the proviral sequence itself, strongly favors post-transcriptional RNA editing as the cause.The full text of these comments can be seen at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/292/5514/7a




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