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Journal of Heredity Advance Access published online on January 19, 2006
Journal of Heredity, doi:10.1093/jhered/esj011
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© The American Genetic Association. 2006. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.
Received August 25, 2005
Accepted November 2, 2005

Article

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

Mario Cáceres 1 *, NISC Comparative Sequencing Program 2, and James W. Thomas 1

1 From the Department of Human Genetics, Emory University School of Medicine, 615 Michael Street, Suite 301, Atlanta, GA 30322
2 From the Genome Technology Branch and NIH Intramural Sequencing Center, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Mario Cáceres, E-mail: mcaceres{at}genetics.emory.edu


  Abstract

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.


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