Importance of codon usage for the temporal regulation of viral gene expression

We describe here that different families of persisting viruses consistently use highly unusual codon usage for synthesis of their structural gene products; that the specific nature of the skewed codon usage differs fundamentally from one virus family to another; and that viral-encoded regulatory proteins (specifically Rev of HIV/SIV and ORF57 of herpesviruses) recognize the specific nature of the skewed codon usage to allow expression of their structural gene products. The data include a stunning demonstration of the ability to flip Rev inducibility and ORF57 inducibility simply by changing the nature of the codon usage in the target gene.