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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Microarray-based Identification of Individual HERV Loci Expression: Application to Biomarker Discovery in Prostate Cancer
Published on: November 3, 2013
A rare event of insertion polymorphism of a HERV-K LTR in the human genome
I Mamedov1, Y Lebedev, G Hunsmann
1Shemyakin-Ovchinnikov Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, 16/10 Miklukho-Maklaya, 117997 Moscow, Russia. Imam@humgen.siobc.ras.ru
Abstract:
Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), which constitute a significant part of the human genome, might have a serious impact on primate evolution. Over a hundred insertions of HERV-K(HML-2) family members distinguish the human genome from other primate genomes. However, only three cases of insertion polymorphisms have been reported so far, all for endogenous HERV-K proviruses. This suggests that some retroviral integrations occurred rather recently in human genome evolution. In this report, we describe a very rare case of true insertion polymorphism of a solitary HERV-K LTR in the human genome. Distribution of the LTR-containing allele was tested in 5 Africans and 83 individuals from three Russian populations. The allele frequency appeared to be relatively high in populations of both European and Asian origin. The detected polymorphic LTR could be a useful molecular genetic marker of the corresponding genomic region.
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