Skip Navigation


Journal of Heredity Advance Access originally published online on January 19, 2006
Journal of Heredity 2006 97(2):100-106; doi:10.1093/jhered/esj011
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
97/2/100    most recent
esj011v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Cáceres, M.
Right arrow Articles by Thomas, J. W.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Cáceres, M.
Right arrow Articles by Thomas, J. W.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The American Genetic Association. 2006. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

The Gene of Retroviral Origin Syncytin 1 is Specific to Hominoids and is Inactive in Old World Monkeys

Mario Cáceres, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program, and James W. Thomas

From the Department of Human Genetics, Emory University School of Medicine, 615 Michael Street, Suite 301, Atlanta, GA 30322 (Cáceres and Thomas); and the Genome Technology Branch and NIH Intramural Sequencing Center, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892 (NISC Comparative Sequencing Program)

Address correspondence to Mario Cáceres at the address above, or e-mail: mcaceres{at}genetics.emory.edu.

Syncytin 1 is one of the best known examples of recent acquisition of a new gene from an endogenous retrovirus (HERV) in the human genome and has been implicated in placental physiology. Within primates, Syncytin 1 is conserved in all hominoids but has not been characterized in Old World monkeys (OWMs). In this study, we investigated the status of Syncytin 1 in 14 hominoid and OWM species. We show that although the HERV-W provirus responsible for the origin of this gene was present in the genome of the most recent common ancestor of hominoids and OWMs, Syncytin 1 is inactive in OWMs. In addition, we were able to determine that the evolution of Syncytin 1 in hominoids involved an accumulation of amino acid changes and showed signatures of both positive and purifying selection. Our results indicate that Syncytin 1 is indeed a hominoid-specific gene and illustrate the complex and dynamic process associated with the origin of new genes.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.