Publikationsdatenbank

Degradation and remobilization of endogenous retroviruses by recombination during the earliest stages of a germ-line invasion (2018)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Löber, Ulrike

Hobbs, Matthew

Dayaram, Anisha

Tsangaras, Kyriakos

Jones, Kiersten

Alquezar-Planas, David E

Ishida, Yasuko

Meers, Joanne

Mayer, Jens

Quedenau, Claudia

Chen, Wei

Johnson, Rebecca N

Timms, Peter

Young, Paul R

Roca, Alfred L

Greenwood, Alex D (WE 5)

Quelle

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

Bandzählung: 115

Heftzählung: 34

Seiten: 8609 – 8614

ISSN: 1091-6490

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1807598115

Pubmed: 30082403

Kontakt

Institut für Virologie

Robert-von-Ostertag-Str. 7-13
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 51833
virologie@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are proviral sequences that result from colonization of the host germ line by exogenous retroviruses. The majority of ERVs represent defective retroviral copies. However, for most ERVs, endogenization occurred millions of years ago, obscuring the stages by which ERVs become defective and the changes in both virus and host important to the process. The koala retrovirus, KoRV, only recently began invading the germ line of the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), permitting analysis of retroviral endogenization on a prospective basis. Here, we report that recombination with host genomic elements disrupts retroviruses during the earliest stages of germ-line invasion. One type of recombinant, designated recKoRV1, was formed by recombination of KoRV with an older degraded retroelement. Many genomic copies of recKoRV1 were detected across koalas. The prevalence of recKoRV1 was higher in northern than in southern Australian koalas, as is the case for KoRV, with differences in recKoRV1 prevalence, but not KoRV prevalence, between inland and coastal New South Wales. At least 15 additional different recombination events between KoRV and the older endogenous retroelement generated distinct recKoRVs with different geographic distributions. All of the identified recombinant viruses appear to have arisen independently and have highly disrupted ORFs, which suggests that recombination with existing degraded endogenous retroelements may be a means by which replication-competent ERVs that enter the germ line are degraded.