title: Evolutionary dynamics of the human endogenous retrovirus family HERV-K inferred from full-length proviral genomes.
abstract: Several distinct families of endogenous retroviruses exist in the genomes of primates. Most of them are remnants of ancient germ-line infections. The human endogenous retrovirus family HERV-K represents the unique known case of endogenous retrovirus that amplified in the human genome after the divergence of human and chimpanzee lineages. There are two types of HERV-K proviral genomes differing by the presence or absence of 292 bp in the pol-env boundary. Human-specific insertions exist for both types. The analyses shown in the present work reveal that several lineages of type 1 and type 2 HERV-K proviruses remained transpositionally active after the human/chimpanzee split. The data also reflect the important role of mosaic evolution (either by recombination or gene conversion) during the evolutionary history of HERV-K.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioloxía Fundamental, Facultade de Bioloxía, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Campus Sur s/n E-15782 Santiago de Compostela, (A Coruña), Spain.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Costas
mesh_terms: D001483:Base Sequence; D019295:Computational Biology; D016208:Databases, Factual; D020077:Endogenous Retroviruses / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015894:Genome, Human; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D010802:Phylogeny; D011533:Proviruses / Q000235:genetics*; D017385:Sequence Homology; D016662:Virus Integration