Ancient Viruses and Their Impact on Host Species - Emerging Themes in Paleovirology
A special issue of Genes (ISSN 2073-4425). This special issue belongs to the section "Population and Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 November 2021) | Viewed by 4210
Special Issue Editors
Interests: retroviruses; genomics; innate immunity
Interests: ecology and evolution of viruses; viral genomics; paleovirology; bioinformatics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Interactions with viruses have been instrumental in shaping the evolution of species. The sequences of ancient viruses, or at least sequence fragments, have sometimes been fortuitously preserved in host genomes as a result of integration into the host germline. These endogenous viral elements (EVEs) provide a rare source of insight into the biology of extinct viruses (‘paleoviruses’) and allow for the calibration of the evolutionary timeline of virus–host interaction. Furthermore, intriguing roles in host biology have been reported for some EVEs, including the regulation of host gene expression, placental development, and antiviral immunity.
This Special Issue is designed to provide an overview of the emerging themes and currently unanswered questions in paleovirology. We encourage the submission of studies from all areas of paleovirology, and are particularly in interested in the following:
- Primary research and review articles that examine the putative functional roles of EVEs.
- New perspectives on ancient virus diversity and the evolutionary relationships between ancient and modern groups.
- Experimental studies reporting interesting yet unexplained paleovirus-related phenomena.
Dr. Robert J. Gifford
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- paleovirology
- endogenous viral element
- endogenous retrovirus
- horizontal transfer
- host–virus interactions
- cross-species transmission
- virus diversity
- virus metagenomics
- virus taxonomy
- viral restriction factor
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