In article <eesnyder.697953088 at beagle> eesnyder at boulder.Colorado.EDU (Eric E. Snyder) writes:
>Anyway, I think seeing this sort of genomic evolution occuring on a
>human time scale is facinating. Can anyone think of other examples?
Endogenous retroviruses are being fixed in the genome of standard
inbred strains of mice as we speak. This actually has implications
for people using these mice in research; the mice you buy today can be
significantly different from the mice you bought 5 years ago. Two
references to this phenomenon are:
AN 82173226. 82000.
AU Herr-W. Gilbert-W.
TI Germ-line MuLV reintegrations in AKR/J mice.
SO Nature. 1982 Apr 29. 296(5860). P 865-8.
AN 82216983. 82000.
AU Steffen-D-L. Taylor-B-A. Weinberg-R-A.
TI Continuing germ line integration of AKV proviruses during the
breeding of AKR mice and derivative recombinant inbred strains.
SO J-Virol. 1982 Apr. 42(1). P 165-75.
At the time that we and Winship Herr did these studies, endogenous
proviruses were segregating among the foundation stocks of AKR mice
being supplied by Jackson Labs. I have always wondered precisely what
had gotten fixed in the mice they are selling today.
BTW, although neither Winship nor I had any evidence that the newly
integrated proviruses we studied had phenotypic consequences, Neil
Copeland and Nancy Jenkins have beautifully documented the fact that
some of the the standard mutations studied in mice are the result of
insertional mutagenesis by retroviruses.
--
David Steffen
Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX 77030
Telephone = (713) 798-6655, FAX = (713) 790-0545
Internet = steffen at mbir.bcm.tmc.edu
