College of Veterinary Medicine, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot, China.
Ulanqab Center for Animal Disease Control and Prevention, Ulanqab, China.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2024 Jun 28;14:1404431. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2024.1404431. eCollection 2024.
Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), which originated from exogenous retroviral infections of germline cells millions of years ago and were inherited by subsequent generations as per Mendelian inheritance patterns, predominantly comprise non-protein-coding sequences due to the accumulation of mutations, insertions, deletions, and truncations. Nevertheless, recent studies have revealed that ERVs play a crucial role in diverse biological processes by encoding various proteins.
In this study, we successfully identified an ERV envelope ) gene in a mink species. A phylogenetic tree of mink ERV-V and reference sequences was constructed using Bayesian methods and maximum-likelihood inference.
Phylogenetic analyses indicated a significant degree of sequence conservation and positive selection within the -surface open reading frame. Additionally, qRT-PCR revealed diverse patterns of mink ERV-V expression in various tissues. The expression of mink ERV-V gene in testicular tissue strongly correlated with the seasonal reproductive cycles of minks.
Our study suggests that the ERV-V gene in mink may have been repurposed for host functions.
内源性逆转录病毒（ERVs）起源于数百万年前生殖细胞中外源逆转录病毒的感染，并按照孟德尔遗传模式遗传给后代，由于突变、插入、缺失和截断的积累，主要由非蛋白编码序列组成。然而，最近的研究表明，ERVs 通过编码各种蛋白质在不同的生物学过程中发挥着关键作用。
在本研究中，我们成功地在一种貂属物种中鉴定出一种 ERV 包膜基因。使用贝叶斯方法和最大似然推理构建了貂属 ERV-V 和参考序列的系统发育树。
系统发育分析表明，在 - 表面开放阅读框内存在显著的序列保守性和正选择。此外，qRT-PCR 显示了貂属 ERV-V 在不同组织中的不同表达模式。睾丸组织中貂属 ERV-V 基因的表达与貂属的季节性生殖周期密切相关。
我们的研究表明，貂属中的 ERV-V 基因可能被重新用于宿主功能。
