Each year I inform the students in my Columbia University virology course that all known DNA polymerases – viral or cellular – require a primer to initiate DNA synthesis (it’s even stated in our textbook, Principles of Virology). This statement is no longer true, as shown by the discovery of two different DNA polymerases that can initiate DNA synthesis in the absence of any primer.
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TWiV 514: Staying below the ADAR
The TWiVumvirate reviews this years crop of Nobel Prizes, and how cells prevent leakage of mitochondrial double-stranded RNA into the cytoplasm, which would otherwise lead to the production of interferon.
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TWiV 485: Fishing with defective flies
The TWiV posse considers viral insulin-like peptides encoded in fish genomes, and insect antiviral immunity by production of viral DNA from defective genomes of RNA viruses.
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Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv