HIV-1 Natural Antisense Transcription and Its Role in Viral Persistence.

Natural antisense transcripts (NATs) represent a class of RNA molecules that are transcribed from the opposite strand of a protein-coding gene, and that have the ability to regulate the expression of their cognate protein-coding gene via multiple mechanisms. NATs have been described in many prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems, as well as in the viruses that infect them. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1) is no exception, and produces one or more NAT from a promoter within the 3' long terminal repeat.