Endogenous retroviruses: Link to programmed aging found

The co-option between viruses and humans plays important roles during human evolution. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), belonging to long terminal repeat retrotransposons, are a relic of ancient retroviral infection, fixed ...

New inherited retroviruses identified in the koala genome

Historic virus infections can be traced in vertebrate genomes. For millions of years, these genomes have been repositories for retroviruses that incorporated their code into germline cells and were inherited as endogenous ...

Koalas exposed to double-whammy health threat

An AIDS-like virus plaguing Australia's koala population is leaving them more vulnerable to chlamydia and other threatening health conditions, University of Queensland research has found.

Retroviruses are re-writing the koala genome and causing cancer

The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus which, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000 years, KoRV has infected the egg or sperm cells of koalas, ...

Viruses play critical role in evolution and survival of the species

As the world scrambles to control the growing COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, new research in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology shows viruses also play a key evolutionary role in mammals' ability to reproduce and survive.

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