Overview Function convert RNA to DNA performed by reverse transcriptase has high error rate and cannot proofread three activities RNA-dependent DNA polymerase RNase DNA-dependent DNA polymerase Clinical relevance present in retroviruses e.g. HIV some HIV drugs inhibit reverse transcriptase AZT enters cells and modified by addition of ATP functions as a nucleoside analog terminates replication present in telomerase see Telomere topic used in RT-PCR see PCR topic