Ancient invasion of an extinct gammaretrovirus in cetaceans.

Lina Wang, Qiuyuan Yin, Guimei He, Stephen J Rossiter, Edward C Holmes, Jie Cui

Institute of Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Institutes for Advanced Interdisciplinary Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.

Virology 2013 Jun 20

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Endogenous gammaretroviruses (EGVs) have been widely studied in terrestrial mammals but seldom so in marine species. A genomic mining of the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) genome revealed a new EGV, termed Tursiops truncatus endogenous retrovirus (TTEV), which is divergent from extant mammalian EGVs. Molecular clock dating estimated the invasion time of TTEV into the host genome to be approximately 10-19 million years ago (MYA), while a previously identified killer whale endogenous gammaretrovirus (KWERV) was estimated to have invaded the host genome approximately 3-5 MYA. Using a PCR-based technique, we then verified that similar endogenous viruses exist in nine cetacean genomes. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that these cetacean EGVs are highly divergent from their counterparts in other mammals, including KWERV from the killer whale. In sum, we conclude that there have been at least two invasion episodes of EGVs into cetaceans during their evolutionary history. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Lina Wang, Qiuyuan Yin, Guimei He, Stephen J Rossiter, Edward C Holmes, Jie Cui. Ancient invasion of an extinct gammaretrovirus in cetaceans. Virology. 2013 Jun 20;441(1):66-9