Rev-dependent expression of three species of HIV-1 mRNAs (Review)

The expression of structural and accessory genes of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) except for nef requires a viral regulatory protein Rev . Rev-dependency of the expression of structural (gag, pol and env), regula tory (tat and rev), and accessory genes (vif, vpr, vpu and nef) has been in vestigated by various systems, and it has been demonstrated that unspliced (encodes gag and pol) and singly-spliced (env-vpu, vif and vpr) viral mRNAs are differentially dependent on the function of Rev. In this review, the f unction of HIV-1 Rev in relation to these findings is discussed.