Antiviral Resistance in Hepadnaviruses??

[Sandra Russell]

In <3p5lqu$kh4 at pipe1.nyc.pipeline.com> ijiwaru at nyc.pipeline.com (Lyle 
Najita) writes: 

>
>Karl, 
> 
>although not exactly a response to your query, the last antiviral test 
I
>heard about for hepadnaviruses was the disasterous FIAU trials last 
year.
>Those were halted early due to toxicity of the therapeutic and not due 
to
>resistance in the virus. Unfortunately it seems the best way to treat
>hepadnaviral disease is prevention. 
> 
>L
>

Excuse a lay question: since hepadnaviruses sort of look like 
retroviruses, and have the same transmission patterns as HIV, and are 
carcinogenic, and since their DNA replicase even has reverse 
transcriptase activity, I wonder if they are related?  Is there any 
homology at all to these viruses and the retroviruses?

Could retroviruses be hepadnaviruses that just got packaged wrong (along 
with some RT?)

                                            Steve Harris, M.D.