TY - JOUR AU - Taylor, Derek J. AU - Leach, Robert W. AU - Bruenn, Jeremy PY - 2010 DA - 2010/06/22 TI - Filoviruses are ancient and integrated into mammalian genomes JO - BMC Evolutionary Biology SP - 193 VL - 10 IS - 1 AB - Hemorrhagic diseases from Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus (Filoviridae) infections can be dangerous to humans because of high fatality rates and a lack of effective treatments or vaccine. Although there is evidence that wild mammals are infected by filoviruses, the biology of host-filovirus systems is notoriously poorly understood. Specifically, identifying potential reservoir species with the expected long-term coevolutionary history of filovirus infections has been intractable. Integrated elements of filoviruses could indicate a coevolutionary history with a mammalian reservoir, but integration of nonretroviral RNA viruses is thought to be nonexistent or rare for mammalian viruses (such as filoviruses) that lack reverse transcriptase and replication inside the nucleus. Here, we provide direct evidence of integrated filovirus-like elements in mammalian genomes by sequencing across host-virus gene boundaries and carrying out phylogenetic analyses. Further we test for an association between candidate reservoir status and the integration of filoviral elements and assess the previous age estimate for filoviruses of less than 10,000 years. SN - 1471-2148 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-10-193 DO - 10.1186/1471-2148-10-193 ID - Taylor2010 ER -