Endogenous retroviruses

5 pages, and only 1 dissonant post. And a quickly dispelled one at that.

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Okay thanks for the simplified clarifications.

So please be patient with me because I am going to ask heaps of questions.
But one or two at a time as my brain is already close to overload.

1: Is this imprint in ALL races of humans ?

2: Clarify Chimp---all monkeys or just the chimpanzee species.
Can't quite make out the imprints in the above picture.
Does it say humans have same imprint as all the types of monkeys ?

3: How do we know it's a virus that made the imprint.

It is really a big topic, i have no idea how deep you want to get into it, partly a matter of time and study, but mostly one of interest and incentive.

here is a summary of an article in the field
this brief paragraph actually answers all your questions.


BACKGROUND: Endogenous retroviruses contribute to the evolution of the host genome and can be associated with disease. Human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) is related to the mouse mammary tumor virus and is present in the genomes of humans, apes and cercopithecoids (Old World monkeys). It is unknown how long ago in primate evolution the full-length HERV-K proviruses that are in the human genome today were formed. RESULTS: Ten full-length HERV-K proviruses were cloned from the human genome. Using provirus-specific probes, eight of the ten were found to be present in a genetically diverse set of humans but not in other extant hominoids. Intact preintegration sites for each of these eight proviruses were present in the apes. A ninth provirus was detected in the human, chimpanzee, bonobo and gorilla genomes, but not in the orang-utan genome. The tenth was found only in humans, chimpanzees and bonobos. Complete sequencing of six of the human-specific proviruses showed that full-length open reading frames for the retroviral protein precursors Gag-Pro-Pol or Env were each present in multiple proviruses. CONCLUSIONS: At least eight full-length HERV-K genomes that are in the human germline today integrated after humans diverged from chimpanzees. All of the viral open reading frames and cis-acting sequences necessary for HERV-K replication must have been intact during the recent time when these proviruses formed. Multiple full-length open reading frames for all HERV-K proteins are present in the human genome today.

as per the rules of the forum i am unable to cite the reference. therefore google a short piece to obtain the article.

the title of the best review article i found is:
"Demystified . . . Human endogenous retroviruses"

if you google it, and try to read the article i think it will point you in the right direction. which is probably the best a forum like this can do. it is not really conductive to long complex scientific thinking....(imho)

why on Earth is there a rule saying you can't cite the reference ? Surely not citing a reference is plagiarism (although you have said it's from a reference, so maybe not) ?

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as per forum rules. an attempt by me to post an external link results in the above error message. in fact, i can not even post the error message as that contains tags.....

o'well, 12 more messages to go *grin*
something like paying your dues.

Wellcome to the board. You can cite references of course but you can't post website links until after you have made a certain number of posts (15?). I remember that annoyed me at first but I guess it is to prevent people from signing up and spamming the board with links to other websites. I have also had the boards anti bad word software insist on modifying a link by putting in *** to write over something it mistakenly thought was offensive. That is annoying but rare.

The frumious Bandersnatch

ah right, i understand what rmwilliamsll means now, as i tried to post a link on another thread.

[quote=WinAce] snip [QUOTE]

I was wondering something actually. How is an ERV distinguishable from the rest of the genome? Is it a pseudogene of some sort that simply shares similar patterns to known retroviruses? If it is an ancient retrovirus, how does one know that a genetic sequence is an endogenous retrovirus insertion?

Well done on the paper by the way.

Of course the whole foundation of the entire argument rests on whether an ERV is fundamentally even detectable. If something cannot be established factually to be an ERV, than all that is for naught. I'm a theistic evolutionist, but I am curious about this. And I have asked quite a few times already on other threads.

From Evowiki:

ERVs are identifiable due to the presense of sequences that code (or once coded) for viral proteins, including gag (structural proteins), pol (viral enzymes), and env (surface proteins), as well as tell-tale LTRs (long terminal repeats).

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Creationism has not made a single contribution to agriculture, medicine, conservation, forestry, pathology, or any other applied area of biology. Creationism has yielded no classifications, no biogeographies, no underlying mechanisms, no unifying concepts with which to study organisms or life. - Botanical Society of America's Statement on Evolution