Reverse transcriptase inhibitors

Use of the reverse transcriptase enzyme is a unique characteristic of retroviruses such as HIV. After the virus releases its genetic material into a host cell, reverse transcriptase converts the viral RNA into a complementary piece of DNA, a process is known as ‘reverse transcription’.

Reverse transcriptase works by looking in turn at each of the nucleoside building blocks that make up the viral RNA and using them as a template to assemble a complementary DNA chain using nucleotide building blocks present in the cell.

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