# Retrovirus research

Dustin Edwards's retrovirus research runs along one line from the start of his career to now: how a retrovirus establishes and keeps a lifelong infection in its host, and what that costs the host. The earlier work was on human retroviruses, chiefly human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1). The current work is on two retroviruses of wild birds, reticuloendotheliosis virus (REV) and lymphoproliferative disease virus (LPDV), in wild turkeys in Texas. This page is the short overview; each part has its own page with the papers and what they found, and every paper is on the [publications page](/research/publications).

## Retroviruses in brief

Retroviruses copy their RNA genome into DNA and insert that DNA, the provirus, into the host cell's chromosomes. An infected host carries the provirus for life. That lifelong integration is what lets some retroviruses cause cancer, and it is also what makes them detectable by PCR on DNA from a small blood sample.

## Human retroviruses

HTLV-1 infects T cells and causes adult T-cell leukemia, an aggressive cancer, in a small fraction of the people who carry it. Beyond its structural genes, the virus encodes the Tax oncoprotein and a set of small accessory proteins, p12, p8, p13 and p30. This work showed how those proteins help the virus persist: they alter calcium inside the cell, tune T-cell receptor signaling, blunt the display of viral pieces to the immune system, and hold viral messenger RNAs in the nucleus. They are not needed for the virus to grow in cell culture, but they are needed for long-term infection in a living host. Tax, for its part, switches on the PCNA gene and interferes with DNA repair, which may contribute to the genetic instability of infected cells.

**Read the full account: [human retrovirus research](/research/retroviruses/human).** Twelve papers, chapters and conference abstracts, each with a plain-language summary, grouped by theme.

## Avian retroviruses

REV and LPDV are retroviruses of wild birds. Both are associated with immunosuppression and with lymphoid tumors, and because the disease they cause looks alike, telling them apart takes a molecular test. Dustin's group detects and sequences these viruses in wild turkeys in Texas, and a collaboration reported REV in wild and domestic birds in Brazil.

**Read the full account: [avian retrovirus research](/research/retroviruses/avian).** The surveillance studies, the sequenced genomes and the PCR methods behind them.

## Related pages

- [Research](/research)
- [Publications](/research/publications)
- [Protocols](/research/protocols)
- [Bacteriophages](/research/bacteriophages)