Mammals : Primate Evolution via Infectious-Symbiotic Speciation Events

 

Hypothesis: Retroviral Infections are the mechanisms of macrogenetic change during Mammalian, Primate, and Hominoid Evolution

Prediction: The next human evolutionary event will be a symbiosis of the HIV virus into the germ line and the creation of a new subspecies of Homo.

Evidence:

Human Endogenous Retrovirus M infections occured 55 million years ago in a Primate Ancestor. Other retroviruses endogenized about 30 to 35 ma after the divergence of old and new world monkeys.HERV K family infections occured 39 million years ago ,28 million years ago and 14 to 19 million years ago during the hominid radiation. An African great ape lineage infection occured 3 to 5 mya. The modern Human lineage diverged from a branch leading to Neanderthals and Denisovans 800 K years ago and shows a different pattern of certain types of HERV K integrations. There is also evidence of an ancient East African Lineage of Humans from 400 K years ago that gave rise to the Modern Human Group of South Africa. The South African Early Modern Group Migrated to North East Africa and subsequently into Arabia and the rest of the world. It is postulated that the early East African Human Lineage has a different pattern of HERV-K integrations compared to the Early Modern Lineage of South Africans. There is also evidence of a mitochondrial gene transfer event to the Nuclear DNA in Modern Humans about 40K years ago. However, this may or may not be related to retrotansposon activity due to endogenous retroviruses.

The date of the human chromosomal fusion event not yet been determined but is estimated to have occurred about 1 Million years ago. (ie. predating the branching off of Neanderthals and Denisovans).

A question that remains to be answered is : What was the zoonotic or close species source of the exogenous HERV-K Viruses that became endogenous ? or Did something activate endogenous HERV K elements to proliferate in the germ lines of different lineages?

 

Evidence of common ancestry ERVs (video)

XA34 ERV-9 like integration into the germ line 40-45 million years ago

Crystal structure of a pivotal domain of human syncytin-2, a 40 million years old endogenous retrovirus fusogenic envelope gene captured by primates.
Renard M, Varela PF, Letzelter C, Duquerroy S, Rey FA, Heidmann T.

Death and Resurrection of the Human IRGM Gene via an ERV 9 insertion event about 25 million years ago

6.
7. The Solitary Long Terminal Repeats of ERV-9 Endogenous Retrovirus Are Conserved during Primate Evolution and Possess Enhancer Activities in Embryonic and Hematopoietic Cell (15-18 million ya)

8. Endogenous retrovirus drives hitherto unknown proapoptotic p63 isoforms in the male germ line of humans and great apes 15 million years ago

 

9. ERV 9 subfamily XII insertions 10-6 million years Ago during the time of the split between Humans and Chimpanzees

10. HERV W LTR family proliferation during the past 2-5 million years

11. Divergent patterns of recent retroviral integrations in the human and chimpanzee genomes: probable transmissions between other primates and chimpanzees.
Jern P, Sperber GO, Blomberg J.

 

Classes of Retroviruses

Taxonomy of ERV 9 and other retroviruses

Identification, phylogeny, and evolution of retroviral elements based on their envelope genes.

The gene of retroviral origin Syncytin 1 is specific to hominoids and is inactive in Old World monkeys.

Virolution

Lavie, L., P. Medstrand, W. Schempp, E. Meese, and J. Mayer. 2004. Human endogenous retrovirus family HERV-K(HML-5): status, evolution, and reconstruction of an ancient betaretrovirus in the human genome. J. Virol. 78:8788–8798.

Sverdlov, E. D. 2000. Retroviruses and primate evolution. Bioessays 22:161–171

Medstrand, P., and D. L. Mager. 1998. Human-specific integrations of the HERV-K endogenous retrovirus family. J. Virol. 72:9782–9787.

Yohn, C. T., Z. Jiang, S. D. McGrath, K. E. Hayden, P. Khaitovich, M. E. Johnson, M. Y. Eichler, J. D. McPherson, S. Zhao, S. Pa¨a¨bo, and E. E. Eichler. 2005. Lineage-specifc expansions of retroviral insertions within the genomes of African great apes but not humans and orangutans. PLoS Biol. 3:e110.

Lorenzo Agoni, Aaron Golden, Chandan Guha, Jack Lenz Neandertal and Denisovan retroviruses Current Biology - 5 June 2012 (Vol. 22, Issue 11, pp. R437-R438)