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  • Title: Gorillas have been infected with the HERV-K (HML-2) endogenous retrovirus much more recently than humans and chimpanzees.
    Author: Holloway JR, Williams ZH, Freeman MM, Bulow U, Coffin JM.
    Journal: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A; 2019 Jan 22; 116(4):1337-1346. PubMed ID: 30610173.
    Abstract:
    Human endogenous retrovirus-K (HERV-K) human mouse mammary tumor virus-like 2 (HML-2) is the most recently active endogenous retrovirus group in humans, and the only group with human-specific proviruses. HML-2 expression is associated with cancer and other diseases, but extensive searches have failed to reveal any replication-competent proviruses in humans. However, HML-2 proviruses are found throughout the catarrhine primates, and it is possible that they continue to infect some species today. To investigate this possibility, we searched for gorilla-specific HML-2 elements using both in silico data mining and targeted deep-sequencing approaches. We identified 150 gorilla-specific integrations, including 31 2-LTR proviruses. Many of these proviruses have identical LTRs, and are insertionally polymorphic, consistent with very recent integration. One identified provirus has full-length ORFs for all genes, and thus could potentially be replication-competent. We suggest that gorillas may still harbor infectious HML-2 virus and could serve as a model for understanding retrovirus evolution and pathogenesis in humans.
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