The crystal structure of the monomeric reverse transcriptase from Moloney murine leukemia virus.
Das, D., Georgiadis, M.M.(2004) Structure 12: 819-829
- PubMed: 15130474 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.str.2004.02.032
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
4MH8 - PubMed Abstract: 
Reverse transcriptases (RTs) are multidomain enzymes of variable architecture that couple both RNA- and DNA-directed DNA polymerase activities with an RNase H activity specific for an RNA:DNA hybrid in order to replicate the single-stranded RNA genome of the retrovirus. Previous structural work has been reported for the heterodimeric HIV-1 and HIV-2 RTs. We now report the first crystal structure of the full-length Moloney murine leukemia virus (MMLV) RT at 3.0 A resolution. The structure reveals a clamp-shaped molecule resulting from the relative positions of the thumb, connection, and RNase H domains that is strikingly different from the HIV-1 RT and provides the first example of a monomeric reverse transcriptase. A comparative analysis with related DNA polymerases suggests a unique trajectory for the template-primer exiting the polymerase active site and provides insights regarding processive DNA synthesis by MMLV RT.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN 46202 USA.