Human ancestors overcame analogue of HIV millions of years ago.
Scientists have discovered that human DNA traces of a virus – equivalent of HIV, which human ancestors coped about eight million years ago.
About the discovery of scientists reported in the journal eLife.
In the study, researchers studied the fragments of retroviruses that have recently been discovered in the genomes of human, apes and monkeys living in Africa. The attention of researchers was attracted by the virus HERV-T is present in DNA of all monkeys and primates, causing massive epidemics among human ancestors at least 25 million years ago. This pathogen, according to the structure of its parts, is completely “died” approximately 8-11 million years ago, the reason why was a mystery to scientists.
The researchers were able to recover some of the virus ‘ genes and see how he enters the body of the first suhonos monkeys, a common ancestor of man and modern apes of Africa. As it turned out, it infected cells, acting similarly to the human immunodeficiency virus, clinging to a certain growth protein on their surface, MCT1, which the body uses to scavenge cells from lactic acid.
Analyzing the structure of the gene env, which is responsible for this function of the virus, scientists found something unexpected – this site is preserved in the human genome almost intact, with very minor changes. A similar pattern was observed in all primates and apes, whose ancestors have vtsepilis of the total tree of evolution with a man about eight million years ago. It was amazing for the reason that viral DNA is generally “junk” from the point of view of evolution, and so it gradually accumulated errors.
The env gene of the virus HERV-T didn’t happen, which means that it was important for the survival of the ancestors of humans, gorillas, chimpanzees and other relatively “new” species of primates. The researchers were able to follow the evolution of the virus and to establish that the body-human primates adapted env to fight against HERV-T, using the gene for the removal of MCT1 outgrowths from the surface cells. Because of this virus simply can not penetrate into the cells, and they avoid contamination.
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