Scientists have found that the evolution of mankind “conducted” viruses – RIA Novosti

MOSCOW, July 13 – RIA Novosti . Leading, if not the major factor in the evolution of people could be viruses – scientists have found that about one-third of “human” proteins that distinguish us from the apes, has viral or antiviral nature, according to an article published in eLife journal

“When animal populations occurs epidemic at some point in their evolution, or she adapts to infection, or dying. We know what happened to humanity, but we were really surprised by how much this phenomenon manifested itself in our evolution, and what how clear was the pattern of the changes that have left us viruses With this we encounter for the first time “, -. said David Enard (David Enard) from Stanford University (USA)

Enard and his colleagues found that the viruses. manage our evolution is actually from the time of separation the ancestors of humans and chimpanzees, our closest relatives, studying the structure of almost 1.3 thousand proteins that somehow respond to the emergence of viruses in the body, connecting and interacting with their proteins and genetic material. These proteins and related genes, the researchers emphasize, are not necessarily part of the immune system – most of them in charge of the work of an entirely different functions and cells of the body.

As the scientists explain, they were interested in how the various pathogens that plug into the genome or alter its operation, may affect the evolution of individual species, genera and families of animals. To answer this question, a group Enarda compared how very different genes, containing the instructions for the assembly of these “viral” proteins in the DNA of humans, chimpanzees and other mammals, as well as how changed the rest of the genes not associated with viruses.

This large-scale analysis revealed an amazing thing – it turned out that the proteins and genes associated with the response to viruses, changed three times faster than other regions of the genome and proteome. This means that the viruses have been a major factor in the evolution of humans and other mammals, which in this case is responsible for about 30% of the changes that have occurred since our genome separation ancestral humans and chimpanzees.

“We are all interested in how evolved we and all other organisms on Earth, and those things and circumstances that made us human discovery that our eternal war against viruses formed virtually all parts of the body -. Not only a handful of protein, fighting infections, and absolutely everything – is a stunning revelation for our life struggles and coexists with the billions of years of virus, and our work shows that this coexistence has affected all parts of the cell “, -. concludes Dmitry Petrov, a colleague Enarda.