Approximately 8% of the human genome can be traced back to retroviruses, which are viruses that alternormal
The most famous retrovirus is the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Retroviruses can be destructiveimpact on human health, but viral genetic material can perform useful functions. For example, retroviral proteins expressed in the placenta allow humans and other mammals to give birth to live offspring rather than eggs.
In the course of human evolution, our ancestors acquireda lot of genetic material from viruses. I used to think that viruses only pose a threat, but some of their genetic sequences are necessary for human development.
Shohei Kojima is a fellow at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS).
Over the past two decades, researchers havelearned about retroviral genetic sequences in the human genome, as well as viral sequences that were not derived from retroviruses. However, it is not known how these sequences differ from person to person and whether these differences can play a positive or negative role.
In the new work, researchers studied viralvariations in 3.3 thousand people from different population groups. They found that viruses are responsible for unexpected structural changes in the human genome. The authors also found rare variants in the germline that can be traced back to the herpes virus.
It is noted that not all of the viral genetic material that they discovered was acquired long ago: some changes occurred relatively recently.
It turned out that some commonly usedthe cell lines were infected with viruses. The authors note that viruses usually do not infect B cells, which are used to create cell lines. It is not yet fully understood how this happened.
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