Ancient Virus DNA Discovery Could Be a Breakthrough In How Diseases Are Treated

concertina226 (2447056) writes "Understanding how retroviruses are passed down through our DNA could be the key to helping researchers re-programme normal cells to become stem cells for treating diseases. Researchers from Canada and Singapore have discovered that the ancient viruses which entered our ancestors' genomes thousands of years ago have altered the way our cells behave; the material left by dead viruses in our cells is the answer. 1,000 copies of one particular class of retroviruses, known as the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-H, is still in our genome, and while the HERV-H retrovirus DNA is dead and cannot replicate itself, it continues to send out messages telling the embryonic stem cell how to become other cells in the body, and this is what makes the cells pluripotent."

Comments

Not "thousands"

[bargainsale]

"which entered our ancestors' genomes thousands of years ago"

Millions. One might hope that errors of three orders of magnitude would be uncommon on Slashdot.

Re:Not "thousands"

[Anonymous Coward]

"which entered our ancestors' genomes thousands of years ago"

Millions. One might hope that errors of three orders of magnitude would be uncommon on Slashdot.

While I agree, it technically does not say how many thousands.

Re:Not "thousands"

[ColdWetDog]

No,they're not required. That's the funny part. There are primates which do a wonderful job of going from fertilized egg to organism without the viral DNA. It's just that the viral DNA is very active in a class of stem cells and not active in other cells. It was thought that all of this 'junk DNA' - which includes most of the incorporated retrovirus DNA - didn't do anything.

Now they know it does something. Only in stem cells. That's weird. And fun. But it's not clear that this is useful or will cure cancer or allow you to get a date.

As usual, it's interesting science hyped beyond measure.

Doesn't sound right to me

[Alan Kennington]

There's too much that sounds wrong to me in this story.

1,000 copies of one particular class of retroviruses, known as the human endogenous retrovirus HERV-H, is still in our genome, and while the HERV-H retrovirus DNA is dead and cannot replicate itself, it continues to send out messages telling the embryonic stem cell how to become other cells in the body, and this is what makes the cells pluripotent.

Maybe the 1000 copies could be correct, but that sounds a bit too high. But the last phrase and this is what makes the cells pluripotent sounds quite wrong. Does this mean that pluripotency didn't happen before this virus got into the genome? This would have to be at least 600 million years ago then. I note that the date in Australia is now 1 April 2014 already.