title: Identification of a RELIK orthologue in the European hare (Lepus europaeus) reveals a minimum age of 12 million years for the lagomorph lentiviruses.
abstract: The retroviral genus Lentivirus comprises retroviruses characterised from five mammalian orders. Lentiviruses typically undergo rapid rates of evolution, a feature that has allowed recent evolutionary relationships to be elucidated, but has also obscured their distant evolutionary past. However, the slowdown in the rate of evolution associated with genome invasion, as has occurred in the European rabbit, enables longer-term lentiviral evolutionary history to be inferred. Here we report the identification of orthologous RELIK proviruses in the European hare, demonstrating a minimum age of 12 million years for the lagomorph lentiviruses. This finding indicates an association between lentiviruses and their hosts covering much of the evolutionary history of the lagomorphs, and taking place within species with a worldwide distribution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Keckesova
authors.forename: L M J
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Ylinen
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Towers
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Gifford
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Katzourakis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002460:Cell Line; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D020077:Endogenous Retroviruses / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D014644:Genetic Variation; D034621:Hares / Q000821:virology*; D006367:HeLa Cells; D006801:Humans; D016086:Lentivirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008322:Mammals / Q000821:virology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011817:Rabbits / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D004247:DNA