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SHARDS. "Similar to artifacts in an archeological museum, time has left its traces on these retroviral elements and very often only “shards” of the once complete sequence remain." https://lnkd.in/eYf5f2J View in LinkedIn

55 M YO GENETIC FOSSILS. "Most HERVs appear to have entered the genome of our ancestors between 30 and 45 million years ago, after the divergence of Old and New World monkeys, although elements as old as 55 million years are known." https://lnkd.in/eW3mbzE View in LinkedIn

"ACCESSORY GENES regulate and coordinate viral gene expression, and some also have other ancillary roles." https://lnkd.in/eU8gmtJ View in LinkedIn

INSERTED CHAOS. "HERV transcription is deregulated in some diseases including tumours. HERV loci can influence transcription of nearby genes." https://lnkd.in/eH8QY7n View in LinkedIn

CANCER VIRUSES. "Some retroviruses carry genes of a different class: the oncogenes, or onc genes. Many retroviruses—hereafter referred to as “transforming” viruses—were first identified by their ability to rapidly cause tumors in animals and oncogenically transform cells in culture." https://lnkd.in/eU8gmtJ View in LinkedIn

KEY GENES. "HIV belongs to a class of viruses called retroviruses. They all share three genes in common. One, called gag, gives rise to the inner shell where the virus’s genes are stored. Another, called env, makes knobs on the outer surface of the virus, that allow it to latch onto cells and invade them. And a third, called pol, makes an enzyme that inserts the virus’s genes into its host cell’s DNA." https://lnkd.in/b3zUsU5 View in LinkedIn

RETRO SIMPLICITY. "The viral genes gag, pro, pol, and env occupy the body of the DNA. Indeed, for many retroviruses, these are the only genes." https://lnkd.in/eU8gmtJ View in LinkedIn

RARE VIRAL GROUP. "In eukaryotes, retroviruses, which can integrate into host genome as an obligate step in their replication strategy, comprise approximately 8% of the human genome. Unlike retroviruses, few members of other virus families are known to transfer genes to host genomes." http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/11/276/ View in LinkedIn

INFECTIOUS RETROVIRUSES. "In contrast to humans, several other species including mice and sheep carry infectious endogenous retroviruses" http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fonc.2013.00246/full View in LinkedIn

OUTNUMBERED. "With more than 500,000 elements, there are over 20-fold more HERV sequences than there are human genes." https://lnkd.in/eYf5f2J View in LinkedIn