Retroviral and Lentiviral Vectors for the Induction of Immunological Tolerance

Figure 2

General life cycle of retrovirus/lentivirus. The lentivirus life cycle is schematically depicted in this Figure. First, the virion can enter the cell either by endocytosis of direct fusion with the cell membrane after binding to its specific receptor (top of the figure). Then, the retrovirus core is released (core release) and reverse transcription takes place. The core containing the cDNA virus genome is transported to the nucleus where it integrates into the host cell chromosome (provirus integration). From the provirus, transcription takes place leading to the transport of either full-length RNA genomes, or to mRNAs encoding the structural and enzymatic proteins (translation). The structural proteins package the full-length RNA genome during virion budding (see right of the figure), releasing infectious viruses following virion maturation.