What is it about?
Retroviruses can colonize vertebrate genomes forming endogenous retroviruses. These events can "re-write" up to 10% of the genome. With very few exceptions, these colonization events are ancient. After screening 278 samples representing seven bat and one rodent family endemic to the Australo-Papuan region (Australia and New Guinea), we found a retrovirus currently colonizing the genome of Melomys leucogaster, a rodent from New Guinea. While forming a part of the rodent genome, the retrovirus has remained potentially infectious and represents only the second model of such an early stage colonization event after the koala retrovirus, KoRV, in its koala host.
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Why is it important?
There are exceptionally few models available to understand how retroviruses colonize and reform the genomes of their vertebrate hosts. Our study represents the second model of this process after the koala retrovirus, KoRV, in koalas and provides a potential window into the processes and health consequences of retroviral colonization. In addition, that the virus is a strain of the woolly monkey retrovirus, it suggests this viral group, originally isolated from primates, may actually be a retroviral group hosted by rodents in New Guinea.
Perspectives
I have always been fascinated with the idea of the genome not being a static blueprint but a dynamic one dramatically affected by viruses. This study was a way of identifying other species going through the process in real time. The Australo-Papua region has been a fruitful area for identifying such models including KoRV, gibbon ape leukemia like viruses in bats and rodents, and now our current Melomys model.
Alex Greenwood
Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A recent gibbon ape leukemia virus germline integration in a rodent from New Guinea, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2220392121.
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