Retrovirology, currently enjoying its 10^th anniversary, saw the publication of its 1000^th article this week:

Discovery and full genome characterization of two highly divergent simian immunodeficiency viruses infecting black-and-white colobus monkeys (Colobus guereza) in Kibale National Park, Uganda, by Michael Lauck and colleagues.

Guest blogger, Liam Prestwood from University of Cambridge,  has summarised the key findings by Lauck et al., and the impact that the discovery of the two divergent SIVs will have on primate retroviral research.

At this significant milestone in the journal’s career, we reflect on the excellent  research published in the journal over the last ten years that has brought the journal to where it is now – the leading specialist virology journal. A key indicator of the journal’s success is a measure of how citable  – and consequently how relevant – its publications are, and the journal’s high Impact Factor confirms the importance of all the research published in the journal.  Below are the ten most cited research articles from the journal and demonstrates well the diversity of retroviral research published in the journal.

• TRIM5a selectively binds a restriction-sensitive retroviral capsid – 138 citations
• Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in UK patients with chronic fatigue syndrome – 124 citations
• Lack of evidence for xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus(XMRV) in German prostate cancer patients  – 118 citations
• Absence of evidence of Xenotropic Murine Leukemia Virus-related virus infection in persons with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and healthy controls in the United States – 103 citations
• Changes in microRNA expression profiles in HIV-1-transfected human cells  –  92 citations
• Disease-associated XMRV sequences are consistent with laboratory contamination – 88 citations
• SIVSM/HIV-2 Vpx proteins promote retroviral escape from a proteasome-dependent restriction pathway present in human dendritic cells – 87 citations
• Discovery of a new human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV-3) in Central Africa – 85 citations
• HIV-1 infection and CD4 T cell depletion in the humanized Rag2(-/-)gamma c(-/-) (RAG-hu) mouse model – 82 citations
• Contamination of human DNA samples with mouse DNA can lead to false detection of XMRV-like sequences – 79 citations

This week is also Open Access week, which this year focuses on the impact that open access has had on the world. Retrovirology was one of the first journals published by BioMed Central, and the journal and its Editors have been pioneers for open access.  The articles published in Retrovirology are not only significant to the retroviral research community, but due to the nature of the viruses they focus on, are of huge impact on the everyday lives of millions of people, especially those living with the diseases so many retroviruses cause.

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Srimathy Sriskantharajah

Srimathy Sriskantharajah completed a BSc in Microbiology (UCL) and a PhD in environmental microbiology/ atmospheric chemistry (Royal Holloway University of London) before joining BioMed Central. Srimathy blogs about microbiology, infectious diseases and the environment amongst other things.

Srimathy is the Executive Publisher for Parasites & Vectors, Malaria Journal and other microbiology/ infectious diseases journals at BioMed Central.

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