Data mining of the dog genome reveals novel Canine Endogenous Retroviruses(CfERVs)

• Mining the dog genome for canine endogenous retroviruses (CfERV) using the program RetroTector© identified 407 CfERVs (0.15% of the total genome size). Phylogenetic analysis showed that the majority of these CfERVs belong to the gammaretroviridae (n=313) genus. In this group, we found 33 integrated CfERVs with similarity to the human HERV-Fc1. Eighteen of them had conserved open reading frames open and seven of the 18 were recent integrations (≤ 5% LTR divergence). Some of these CfERVs may have potential for active retrotransposition and could actively contribute to the plasticity of canine genomes. Similar to other vertebrates, betaretroviruses (n=28) was the second most common group. In addition, four spuma-like and four gypsy-like CfERVs were identified, the latter group being rare in vertebrate genomes. Moreover, we identified 55 CfERVs that could not be classified unambiguously to any known retroviral genera. The integration landscape shows that all dog chromosomes have CfERV integrations with non-uniform distribution both along and across chromosomes. Some regions were essentially devoid of CfERVs whereas other regions had large numbers. Notably, in a comparison between dog and human genomes, CfERV were approximately one fifth of the amount of HERVs found. Species-specific mechanisms for purging and protection against retroviral infections are suggested to act in the dog genome. The CfERV integration pattern showed that a substantial fraction of annotated genes were found within 100 kb distance from annotated proviruses. The majority of such integrations were placed in antisense orientation relative to the transcriptional direction of the neighboring chromosomal genes. In conclusion, our results from Canis familiaris genome analysis support the notion that different mammals may interact distinctively with endogenous retroviruses.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi -- Bioinformatik och systembiologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences -- Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (hsv//eng)

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Medicinska och farmaceutiska grundvetenskaper -- Mikrobiologi inom det medicinska området (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Basic Medicine -- Microbiology in the medical area (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

endogenous retroviruses

ERV

dog

canine

Bioinformatics

Bioinformatik

Clinical virology

Klinisk virologi

Medical Virology

Medicinsk virologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

pop (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)