An Endogenous Foamy-like Viral Element in the Coelacanth Genome

PLoS Pathogens

Michael Worobey¹  Guan-Zhu Han¹ 

[1] Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States of America

关键词: Retroviruses;    Viral genomics;    Paleogenetics;    Phylogenetic analysis;    Animal phylogenetics;    Sequence alignment;    Protein structure comparison;    Vertebrates;   

DOI  :  10.1371/journal.ppat.1002790

学科分类：生物科学（综合）

来源: Public Library of Science

【 摘 要 】

Little is known about the origin and long-term evolutionary mode of retroviruses. Retroviruses can integrate into their hosts' genomes, providing a molecular fossil record for studying their deep history. Here we report the discovery of an endogenous foamy virus-like element, which we designate ‘coelacanth endogenous foamy-like virus’ (CoeEFV), within the genome of the coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae). Phylogenetic analyses place CoeEFV basal to all known foamy viruses, strongly suggesting an ancient ocean origin of this major retroviral lineage, which had previously been known to infect only land mammals. The discovery of CoeEFV reveals the presence of foamy-like viruses in species outside the Mammalia. We show that foamy-like viruses have likely codiverged with their vertebrate hosts for more than 407 million years and underwent an evolutionary transition from water to land with their vertebrate hosts. These findings suggest an ancient marine origin of retroviruses and have important implications in understanding foamy virus biology.

【 授权许可】

CC BY