Structural characterization of the genome of BERV gamma4, the most abundant endogenous retrovirus family in cattle.
The genome of replication-competent BERV gamma4 provirus, which is the most abundant ERV family in the bovine genome, was characterized in detail. The BERV gamma4 genome showed that BERV gamma4 harbors 8576 nucleotides and has the typical 5'-long terminal repeat (LTR)-gag-pro-pol-env-LTR-3' retroviral organization with a long leader region positioned before the gag open reading frame. Multiple sequences analysis showed that the nucleotide difference between 5' and 3' LTRs was 4.2% (mean value 0.042) in average, suggesting that the provirus formed at most 13.3 million years ago. Gag separated by a stop codon from pro-pol in the same reading frame, while env resides in another reading frame lacking of a functional surface domain. According to the current bovine genome sequence assembly, the full-length BERV gamma4 provirus sequences were only found in the chromosomes 1, 2, 6, 10, 15, 23, 26, 28, X, and unassigned, although the partial sequences almost evenly distributed in the entire bovine genome. This is the first detailed study describing the genome structure of BERV gamma4, the most abundant ERV family present in bovine genome. Combined with our recent reports on characterization of ERVs in bovine, this study will contribute to illuminate ERVs in the cattle of which no information was previously available.
Xiao
Rui
R
Laboratory of Mammalian Genomics, Department of Animal Biotechnology, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea.
Park
Kwangha
K
Oh
Younshin
Y
Kim
Jinhoi
J
Park
Chankyu
C
D020121:5' Untranslated Regions / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D030121:Betaretrovirus / Q000235:genetics*; D002417:Cattle / Q000821:virology*; D002875:Chromosomes / Q000235:genetics; D020077:Endogenous Retroviruses / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005814:Genes, Viral; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016679:Genome, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D020079:Terminal Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics
D020121:5' Untranslated Regions