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Updated: Mar 27, 2026

Assembly and Purification of Prototype Foamy Virus Intasomes
Published on: March 19, 2018
Acquisition of Full-Length Viral Helicase Domains by Insect Retrotransposon-Encoded Polypeptides
Ekaterina Lazareva1, Alexander Lezzhov1, Nikita Vassetzky2
1Department of Virology, Faculty of Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University Moscow, Russia.
Abstract:
Recent metagenomic studies in insects identified many sequences unexpectedly closely related to plant virus genes. Here we describe a new example of this kind, insect R1 LINEs with an additional C-terminal domain in their open reading frame 2. This domain is similar to NTPase/helicase (SF1H) domains, which are found in replicative proteins encoded by plant viruses of the genus Tobamovirus. We hypothesize that the SF1H domain could be acquired by LINEs, directly or indirectly, upon insect feeding on virus-infected plants. Possible functions of this domain in LINE transposition and involvement in LINEs counteraction the silencing-based cell defense against retrotransposons are discussed.
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