Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Microarray-based Identification of Individual HERV Loci Expression: Application to Biomarker Discovery in Prostate Cancer
Published on: November 2, 2013
Natural history of the ERVWE1 endogenous retroviral locus
Bertrand Bonnaud1, Jean Beliaeff, Olivier Bouton
1UMR 2714 CNRS-bioMérieux, IFR128 BioSciences Lyon-Gerland Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 Allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France. bertrand.bonnaud@ens-lyon.fr
Background:
The human HERV-W multicopy family includes a unique proviral locus, termed ERVWE1, whose full-length envelope ORF was preserved through evolution by the action of a selective pressure. The encoded Env protein (Syncytin) is involved in hominoid placental physiology.
Results:
In order to infer the natural history of this domestication process, a comparative genomic analysis of the human 7q21.2 syntenic regions in eutherians was performed. In primates, this region was progressively colonized by LTR-elements, leading to two different evolutionary pathways in Cercopithecidae and Hominidae, a genetic drift versus a domestication, respectively.
Conclusion:
The preservation in Hominoids of a genomic structure consisting in the juxtaposition of a retrotransposon-derived MaLR LTR and the ERVWE1 provirus suggests a functional link between both elements.
Related Concept Videos
LTR Retrotransposons
The internal coding region of LTR retrotransposons and their mechanism of transposition closely resembles a...
Retroviruses
Retrovirus Life Cycles
Non-LTR Retrotransposons
Mechanisms of Retrovirus-induced Cancers
Mechanisms of Retrovirus-induced Cancers

