The HERV-W/7q family in the human genome. Potential for protein expression and gene regulation. |
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Authors: | Patrick M Alliel Jean-Pierre Périn Danièle Goudou Marc Bitoun Brigitte Robert Fran?ois Rieger |
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Institution: | INSERM U-488, Batiment Gregory Pincus, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France. alliel@kb.inserm.fr |
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Abstract: | A new family of human endogenous retroviruses has recently been discovered. The best known example of a full length member of this family, HERV-W/7q, is located on chromosome 7. HERV-W/7q is characterized by a long open reading frame within its env gene which is expressed in various tissues, and mainly in placenta, as a protein that we called enverin. A search for new retroviral sequences related to the HERV-W/7q family allowed the characterization of such elements in chromosome 6. A novel full length HERV with an env gene of the HERV-W/7q type, potentially encoding a truncated form of enverin has been identified on chromosome 10. The distribution of HERV-W/7q related sequences close to or within genes offers the possibility that the expression of these genes may be regulated by their companion retroviral sequences. |
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