10/10/26 23:02:24.06 ujLSWSWwP BE:771919027-PLT(12111) ポイント特典
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Ancient chimp virus brought 'back to life'
Scientists have identified the receptor used by a virus that plagued chimpanzees' ancestors.
By Ewen Callaway
A retrovirus that has lain dormant in chimpanzees and their ancestors for at least one million years is surrendering its secrets.
A team of scientists has resurrected a key portion of the virus and determined how it infects cells.
Ordinarily, endogenous viruses--ancient viruses that were long ago engulfed into their host's genome
--are studied on the basis of their DNA sequence alone.
Increasingly, however, researchers are bringing such viruses "back to life"
and putting them through the same laboratory tests that contemporary viruses are subject to.
"Our major motivation for getting involved in this is to try and explain how our host defences evolved,"
says Paul Bieniasz, a virologist at the Rockefeller University in New York,
whose team identified the molecular receptor that was presumably used by the ancient chimpanzee virus1.
Mimicking such defenses could help to combat modern viruses, such as HIV, he says.
Recalled to life
The virus that his team resurrected, known as CERV2, lies within the genomes of contemporary chimpanzees,
but not those of humans, suggesting that chimpanzees' ancestors became infected
after they diverged from human ancestors 5-6 million years ago.
"The virus clearly replicated around the times that nascent humans were trotting
around Africa and beginning to think about colonizing the rest of the world," Bieniasz says.
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