Relationships of gag-pol diversity between Ty3/Gypsy and Retroviridae LTR retroelements and the three kings hypothesis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The origin of vertebrate retroviruses (Retroviridae) is yet to be thoroughly investigated, but due to their similarity and identical gag-pol (and env) genome structure, it is accepted that they evolve from Ty3/Gypsy LTR retroelements the retrotransposons and retroviruses of plants, fungi and animals. These 2 groups of LTR retroelements code for 3 proteins rarely studied due to the high variability - gag polyprotein, protease and GPY/F module. In relation to 3 previously proposed Retroviridae classes I, II and II, investigation of the above proteins conclusively uncovers important insights regarding the ancient history of Ty3/Gypsy and Retroviridae LTR retroelements.

Results

We performed a comprehensive study of 120 non-redundant Ty3/Gypsy and Retroviridae LTR retr

SUBMITTER: Llorens C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2577118 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature