Viral proteins acquired from a host converge to simplified domain architectures.

ABSTRACT: The infection cycle of viruses creates many opportunities for the exchange of genetic material with the host. Many viruses integrate their sequences into the genome of their host for replication. These processes may lead to the virus acquisition of host sequences. Such sequences are prone to accumulation of mutations and deletions. However, in rare instances, sequences acquired from a host become beneficial for the virus. We searched for unexpected sequence similarity among the 900,000 viral proteins and all proteins from cellular organisms. Here, we focus on viruses that infect metazoa. The high-conservation analysis yielded 187 instances of highly similar viral-host sequences. Only a small number of them represent viruses that hijacked host sequences. The low-conservation sequence analys

SUBMITTER: Rappoport N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3271019 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature