Non-retroviral virus sequences in mammalian genomes.
A team of Japanese scientists have identified sequences of bornavirus-like sequences in the genome of several mammals including humans.
This comes out as a surprise as bornaviruses are not retroviruses. This discovery opens the possibility that other processes can copy RNA sequences into genome sequences. Bornaviruses are the only animal RNA viruses that achieve a highly cell-associated life cycle within the nuclear envelope. This process is both conceptually important - it suggests that RNA management may permit an entirely new way to manage the gene content in a genome, and important for emerging diseases, as it shows that viruses other than retroviruses may be revived from cell nuclei. This makes important to explore in details the diseases of the personnel which is associated with meat, butchers and slaughter-house workers. (Read More)
