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Updated: May 10, 2026

Engineering and Evolution of Synthetic Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) Gene Therapy Vectors via DNA Family Shuffling
Published on: April 2, 2012
Computational analysis of four human adenovirus type 4 genomes reveals molecular evolution through two interspecies
Shoaleh Dehghan1, Jason Seto, Elizabeth B Liu
1Chemistry Department, American University, Washington, D.C. 20016, USA; Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program, School of Systems Biology, George Mason University, Manassas, VA 20110, USA.
Abstract:
Computational analysis of human adenovirus type 4 (HAdV-E4), a pathogen that is the only HAdV member of species E, provides insights into its zoonotic origin and molecular adaptation. Its genome encodes a domain of the major capsid protein, hexon, from HAdV-B16 recombined into the genome chassis of a simian adenovirus. Genomes of two recent field strains provide a clue to its adaptation to the new host: recombination of a NF-I binding site motif, which is required for efficient viral replication, from another HAdV genome. This motif is absent in the chimpanzee adenoviruses and the HAdV-E4 prototype, but is conserved amongst other HAdVs. This is the first report of an interspecies recombination event for HAdVs, and the first documentation of a lateral partial gene transfer from a chimpanzee AdV. The potential for such recombination events are important when considering chimpanzee adenoviruses as candidate gene delivery vectors for human patients.
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