Isolation of novel human endogenous retrovirus-like elements with foamy virus-related pol sequence

A new class of reverse transcriptase coding sequences was detected in reverse-transcribed RNAs from human placenta by polymerase chain amplification with primers in highly conserved regions of the pol gene of mammalian retroviruses and retrotransposons. Using one of these novel sequences as a probe to screen a human genomic library, we isolated retrovirus-like elements bordered by long terminal repeats and having a potential leucine tRNA primer-binding site. Determination of the complete nucleotide sequence (6,591 bp) of one of these elements, termed HERV-L (for human endogenous retrovirus with leucine tRNA primer), revealed domains of amino acid similarities to retroviral reverse transcriptase and integrase proteins. In addition, a region with homologies to dUTPase proteins was found unexpectedly downstream from the integrase domain. Amino acid sequence and phylogenetic analysis indicate that the HERV-L pol gene is related to that of foamy retroviruses. HERV-L-related sequences are detected in several mammalian species and have expanded in primate and mouse genomes up to 100 to 200 copies.