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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Assembly and Purification of Prototype Foamy Virus Intasomes
Published on: March 19, 2018
On the origin and evolution of vertebrate and viral profilins
Debby Polet1, Anja Lambrechts, Klaas Vandepoele
1Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Abstract:
The three dimensional structures of profilins from invertebrates and vertebrates are remarkably similar despite low sequence similarity. Their evolutionary relationship remains thus enigmatic. A phylogenetic analysis of profilins from Deuterostoma indicates that profilin III and IV isoforms each form distinct groups. Profilin IV is most related to invertebrate profilins and originated prior to vertebrate evolution whereas separation of profilin I, II and III isoforms occurred early in vertebrate evolution. Viral profilins are most similar to profilin III. In silico analysis of representative profilin gene structures corroborates the phylogenetic result and we discuss this in terms of biochemical differences.
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