Noninfectious retrovirus particles drive the APOBEC3/Rfv3 dependent neutralizing antibody response.

ABSTRACT: Members of the APOBEC3 family of deoxycytidine deaminases counteract a broad range of retroviruses in vitro through an indirect mechanism that requires virion incorporation and inhibition of reverse transcription and/or hypermutation of minus strand transcripts in the next target cell. The selective advantage to the host of this indirect restriction mechanism remains unclear, but valuable insights may be gained by studying APOBEC3 function in vivo. Apobec3 was previously shown to encode Rfv3, a classical resistance gene that controls the recovery of mice from pathogenic Friend retrovirus (FV) infection by promoting a more potent neutralizing antibody (NAb) response. The underlying mechanism does not involve a direct effect of Apobec3 on B cell function. Here we show that while Apobec3 decr

SUBMITTER: Smith DS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3188525 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature