Retroviruses: Molecular Biology, Genomics and Pathogenesis Alice Telesnitsky Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Michigan, MI 48109-5620, USA Retroviruses have been of enduring interest to biomedical scientists from the time Peyton Rous first reported that a filterable agent could transmit cancer in chickens, through to the current challenges and discoveries associated with HIV-1. This book represents an ambitious effort, spearheaded by editors Reinhard Kurth and Norbert Bannert, to produce a definitive reference for the field. Many review articles on individual topics covered are currently available elsewhere, as are several strong compendiums. However, no authoritative, current, comprehensive text covering the complex subject of retrovirology exists. Although some sections of old reference books hold up remarkably well, whole new areas of inquiry, such as host antiretro viral restriction factors, have blossomed in recent years, and rapid progress in fields, such as virus assembly, have made it clear that a volume similar to what the editors sought to deliver here is long overdue. This book is comprised of 16 chapters, each authored by experts in their respective fields, which are listed and briefly reviewed later in this article. This book opens with a very brief preface, illustrated with a single dendrogram that presents the seven genera of retroviruses, followed by an extensive `Abbreviations' key. Then, rather than start the volume with introductory information about replication cycles and general properties of retroviruses (which, ironically, is basically what the final chapter contains), the book starts with a chapter on nonretroviral retrotransposons. Everlasting war dance between retrotransposons & their metazoan hosts: David Symer & Jef Boeke This opening chapter describes retrotransposons, with its whimsical title alluding to recent research demonstrating that the genomes of metazoans not only contain mind-boggling numbers of retrotransposons (perhaps 1 million short interspersed elements per human haploid genome) but also a significant number of genes whose primary functions are to interfere with retrovirus and/or retrotransposon replication. The authors focused on recent developments and as such the chapter was less strong as an overview. Although an interesting read, the chapter fell prey to `cuteness' in its descriptions of the genetic conflict between transposons and their hosts, and to entropy in its exuberant desire to toss in everything. The authors are clearly well versed in their field, but the chapter was repetitious and somewhat vague at points. Use of specialized terms, such as “exaptation”, long before their definition made one wish this were an electronic version, so that the definition could be found. Little inaccuracies, such as the claim that each long terminal repeat contains a primer © 2010 Future Medicine Ltd Tel.: +1 734 936 6466, Fax: +1 734 764 3562, ateles@umich.edu. Financial & competing interests disclosure The author has no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed. No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript. NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Future Virol. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 July 1. Published in final edited form as: Future Virol. 2010 September 1; 5(5): 539–543. doi:10.2217/fvl.10.43. NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript