Identification of a Novel Post-transcriptional Transactivator from the Equine Infectious Anemia Virus

Abstract

Nuclear export of viral transcripts is a crucial step for viral gene expression and viral replication in lentiviruses, and this export is regulated by a post-transcriptional transactivator, Rev, that is shared by all lentiviruses. Here, we report that the equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV) encodes a novel viral protein, Grev, and demonstrated that Grev, like Rev, mediates the expression of the viral protein Mat by binding to the first exon of mat mRNAs via the chromosome region maintenance 1 (CRM1) pathway.