How to Use retrovirus in a Sentence

retrovirus

noun
  • Of course, the retrovirus doesn’t enter the host’s genome just one time.
    — Quanta Magazine, 4 Mar. 2015
  • Fears that pig organs would infect humans with bizarre retroviruses brought the research to a halt.
    — Gina Kolata, The Seattle Times, 10 Aug. 2017
  • First of all, HIV is a retrovirus, a type of virus that rarely infects humans.
    — Adam Rogers, WIRED, 1 June 2018
  • This gene probably originates from a retrovirus for the proteins that cause fusion between the virus and the cell, says Dutch.
    — Manasee Wagh, Popular Mechanics, 16 Aug. 2022
  • Sometimes, a retrovirus will inadvertently stitch itself into the genome of a sperm or an egg, and its blueprints end up passed to its host’s progeny.
    — Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 21 Sep. 2022
  • Feline leukemia, a usually fatal cancer caused by a retrovirus, spreads from cat to cat via saliva, when the animals lick, bite, or groom one another.
    — Dr. Rob Sharp, Country Living, 28 June 2010
  • Three years earlier, investigators had found genetic sequences of the novel retrovirus in prostate tumors from men with that disease.
    — Hillary Johnson, Discover Magazine, 20 July 2013
  • After eight years of research, Perron finally completed his retrovirus’s gene sequence.
    — Douglas S Fox, Discover Magazine, 4 Dec. 2014
  • Pigs carry retroviruses, which replicate by permanently inserting their genes in the DNA of a host species.
    — Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 24 Jan. 2018
  • The retrovirus insertion has occurred at different positions in the Chilean and Chinese chicken genomes.
    — Lisa Raffensperger, Discover Magazine, 13 Sep. 2013
  • The discovery of the first human retrovirus in 1980 was a minor scientific sensation.
    — Kai Kupferschmidt, Science | AAAS, 23 May 2018
  • Researchers have yet to develop a vaccine for the retrovirus HIV, for example, in large part because its multiple strains keep evolving.
    — Anna Funk, Discover Magazine, 12 June 2019
  • The team also led the development of retroviruses as vectors to deliver DNA for gene therapy.
    — Meredith Wadman, Science | AAAS, 26 Apr. 2018
  • VandeWoude studies lentiviruses — a type of retrovirus that includes HIV — in mountain lions and bobcats.
    — Quanta Magazine, 13 Sep. 2017
  • And in lab experiments, these porcine endogenous retroviruses (PERVs) tended to leap from pig to human cells.
    — Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 24 Jan. 2018
  • In its former life as a retrovirus, Syncytin could fuse with cell membranes to enter cells; its modern form allows the placenta to form during fetal development by fusing cells together.
    — Bysara Reardon, science.org, 27 Oct. 2022
  • The retroviruses are dormant in pigs, but fear of transmission to humans has been a major barrier in moving forward with animal-to-human transplants, known as xenotransplantation.
    — Amy Dockser Marcus, WSJ, 10 Aug. 2017
  • Some overlapped with regions of the genome that seem to belong to retroviruses that invaded our ancestors’ genomes; others belong to other repetitive stretches, which are rarely translated into proteins.
    — Cassandra Willyard, Scientific American, 19 June 2018
  • When the cells were returned to the patient through an intravenous infusion, the retrovirus did its trick with the new material — replicating quickly throughout the body, essentially curing the child of the disease.
    — William A. Haseltine, Forbes, 12 May 2021
  • When Judy Mikovits co-authored a that linked the mysterious condition known as chronic fatigue syndrome to a retrovirus that came from mice, thousands of sick patients hoping for relief, behind her.
    — Katie Shepherd, Washington Post, 8 May 2020
  • One popular theory points to a class of viruses known as retroviruses, which can insert DNA into their host’s genome that is then passed from generation to generation.
    — Quanta Magazine, 2 Jan. 2014
  • An additional 59 edits were made to some of the donor animals to inactivate endogenous retroviruses, which are found in pig DNA.
    — Emily Mullin, WIRED, 11 Oct. 2023
  • In the trial, children were given a treatment based on retroviruses, which were used as vectors to carry a replacement for the malfunctioning genes responsible for the cohort’s immune deficiencies.
    — Doug Johnson, Ars Technica, 5 Jan. 2023
  • Creating a vaccine that targets HIV is challenging because the retrovirus become part of the human genome 72 hours after transmission.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Aug. 2021
  • He is best known for his pioneering discovery of human retroviruses, including HIV as the cause of AIDS.
    — Charles J. Lockwood, STAT, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Many doctors, though, suspected that the disease was triggered by a retrovirus, a kind of germ that slips into the host cell’s DNA and takes control, in a reversal of the way viruses typically work; hence the name retro.
    — New York Times, 10 Feb. 2022
  • Some infections are lethal to the host, others neutral or even beneficial; humans have an ancient retrovirus to thank for the evolution of the mammalian placenta, for example (the placental wall is constructed of a retrovirus protein).
    — Members Of The Ocean Memory Project, Scientific American, 15 Aug. 2020
  • The retroviruses, which are passed on through hog generations, have never proven to transmit to humans—no human PERV disease cases have ever been reported, even in patients who have received pig tissue transplants.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 11 Aug. 2017
  • Back in the evolutionary past, some of the proteins known as HERV-K Env studded the outside of the HERV-K retroviruses.
    — Ashley MacKin Solomon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Sep. 2025
  • In a study published in Science Advances, LJI researchers revealed the first three-dimensional structure of a protein from one of those ancient human endogenous retroviruses, or HERVs.
    — Ashley MacKin Solomon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'retrovirus.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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