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The Role of Retroviruses in Human Evolution
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 08, 2007 05:38 PM
from the gotta-love-that-twisty-tree-of-life dept.
from the gotta-love-that-twisty-tree-of-life dept.
mhackarbie writes "The current edition of the New Yorker magazine has up a story about endogenous retroviruses in the genomes of humans and other species. Although researchers have known about such non-functional retroviral 'fossils' in the human genome for some time, the large amount of recent genomic data underscores just how pervasive they are, in a compelling tale that involves humans, their primate cousins, and a variety of viral invaders. Some researchers are even bringing back non-functional viral remnants from the dead by fixing their broken genes."
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Bringing back the dead? (Score:3, Interesting)
So what you're saying is we will now have zombie viruses?
Re:Bringing back the dead? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Bringing back the dead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Bringing back the dead? (Score:4, Informative)
Life [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bringing back the dead? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The thing about retroviruses... (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
How do we know the the retrovirus genome didn't originate with the hosts themselves? Did these viruses evolve truly independently, or might they have started out as fragments of genetic code from some larger organism which somehow escaped and became self-sufficient?
In other words, when we look at the human genome and say, "This is riddled with retroviruses!" is it not possible that the retroviruses were actually there all along, and only later became able to leave the parent cell and operate independently?
Are retroviruses actually just chunks of "rebel DNA" from our own genome, or possibly from some other species?
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
A 'rebel DNA leaving home' must have happened at least once, in some species, otherwise how could viruses exist? They seem way too complex to have happened by chance, and they can't evolve until they are complex enough to infect.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My impression is that bacteria are in the habit of absorbing random fragments of DNA from their environment. I can see where some accident would cause such a fragment to carry the instruction 'replicate me' and little else, thus making things interesting. So not so much leaving home as taking it over destructively. Throw in billions of years and trillions of organisms and it starts to get a little ridiculous trying to make any guesses at all.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Aaargh, learn to use the preview button (Score:4, Interesting)
Is what I meant to say.
Parent
Cambrian explosion? (Score:5, Interesting)
Two SciFi novels I recommend (Score:5, Informative)
Next up: (Score:4, Funny)
Can you bring a virus back from the dead... (Score:4, Informative)
Scientists still debate [wikipedia.org] if viruses meet the definition of life as we know it. I'm certainly not qualified to render an opinion on the matter; I just think it's fascinating how viruses occupy this gray area between our definitions of living and non-living.
Here's a PDF of a SciAm article about this very debate [uvm.edu], written by the Director of Virus Research at UC Irvine.
Re:Oh no! (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Reactivated retroviruses (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reactivated retroviruses (Score:4, Insightful)
1. The role of your bacteria in your gut is not to prevent bad bacteria from living there but to help with digestion. However since bacteria on your skin do have this competition role I'll accept it as a valid point.
2. Viruses come, ursurp the mechanisms of the cell to make it produce copies, and then kill the cell to move on (in most cases). Hence using "good" viruses isn't going to make the bad viruses go away. What has happened with the "good" viruses is that they were once bad, but as part of their attack on a cell they merged their rna into our dna which become deactivated and over time changed into a new and positive role.
Parent
Re:Reactivated retroviruses (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
What are you talking about? (Score:3, Insightful)
In any case, I'd prefer it if they'd experiment with mouse retroviruses instead...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)