Genome-wide characterization of endogenous retroviruses in the bat Myotis lucifugus reveals recent and diverse infections.

ABSTRACT: Bats are increasingly recognized as reservoir species for a variety of zoonotic viruses that pose severe threats to human health. While many RNA viruses have been identified in bats, little is known about bat retroviruses. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) represent genomic fossils of past retroviral infections and, thus, can inform us on the diversity and history of retroviruses that have infected a species lineage. Here, we took advantage of the availability of a high-quality genome assembly for the little brown bat, Myotis lucifugus, to systematically identify and analyze ERVs in this species. We mined an initial set of 362 potentially complete proviruses from the three main classes of ERVs, which were further resolved into 13 major families and 86 subfamilies by phylogenetic analysis. Con

SUBMITTER: Zhuo X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3719839 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature