provirus Biol.
(prəʊˈvaɪərəs)
[f. pro-2 + virus, after prophage.]
The form which a DNA or RNA virus has when incorporated into, and able to replicate with, the DNA of a host cell.
| 1952 Physiol. Rev. XXXII. 419 Most of the cells perpetuate the potentiality of producing virus, although the virus itself is rarely detectable in them. For this reason, such cells are considered as infected with a provirus, a perpetuating, but immature and nonlytic agent. 1953 S. E. Luria Gen. Virol. xiv. 277 We may suppose that in the recovered plant the virus is mainly in a condition (provirus) similar to the prophage. 1964 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. LII. 323 It has been suggested that the provirus of Rous sarcoma virus-infected cells is composed of DNA. 1970 Nature 5 Sept. 1023/1 It is widely believed that cells transformed with Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) contain a DNA transcript of the viral RNA, the so-called ‘provirus’. |
Hence proˈviral a.
| 1969 C. D. Darlington in C. W. M. Whitty et al. Virus Dis. & Nervous Syst. 137 Diseases such as Kuru and Scrapie having combined genetic, cytoplasmic and pro-viral components. 1976 Nature 15 July 190 (heading) Proviral sequences of baboon endogenous type C RNA virus in DNA of human leukaemic tissues. |