Retroviral replication

Patent Pending A retrovirus has a membrane that contains glycoproteins, which are able to bind to a receptor protein on a host cell. Within the cell there are two strands of RNA that have three enzymes, protease, reverse transcriptase, and integrase (1). The first step of replication is the binding of the glycoprotein to the receptor protein (2). Once these have been bound the cell membrane degrades and becomes part of the host cell, and the RNA strands and enzymes go into the cell (3). Within the cell, reverse transcriptase creates a complementary strand of DNA from the retrovirus RNA and the RNA is degraded, this strand of DNA is known as cDNA (4). The cDNA is then replicated, and the two strands form a weak bond and go into the nucleus (5).