The Effect of Life History on Retroviral Genome Invasions

摘要: Endogenous retroviruses (ERV), or the remnants of past retroviral infections that are no longer active, found in genomes most vertebrates, typically constituting approximately 10% genome. In some particularly shorter-lived species like rodents, it is not unusual to find active endogenous retroviruses. longer-lived species, including humans where substantial effort has been invested searching for ERVs, them; date none have humans. Presumably chance detecting an ERV infection a function length epidemic. Intuitively, given ERVs signatures passed from parents offspring, we might expect detect more with generation times, as should take years run its course than shorter lived species. This means observation compared paradoxical. We explore this paradox using modeling approach investigate factors influence epidemic length. Our simple epidemiological model may explain why evidence rather