@article{Dewannieux01122006,
author = {Dewannieux, Marie and Harper, Francis and Richaud, Aurélien and Letzelter, Claire and Ribet, David and Pierron, Gérard and Heidmann, Thierry}, 
title = {Identification of an infectious progenitor for the multiple-copy HERV-K human endogenous retroelements},
volume = {16}, 
number = {12}, 
pages = {gr.5565706}, 
year = {2006}, 
doi = {10.1101/gr.5565706}, 
abstract ={Human Endogenous Retroviruses are expected to be the remnants of ancestral infections of primates by active retroviruses that have thereafter been transmitted in a Mendelian fashion. Here, we derived in silico the sequence of the putative ancestral “progenitor” element of one of the most recently amplified family—the HERV-K family—and constructed it. This element, Phoenix, produces viral particles that disclose all of the structural and functional properties of a bona-fide retrovirus, can infect mammalian, including human, cells, and integrate with the exact signature of the presently found endogenous HERV-K progeny. We also show that this element amplifies via an extracellular pathway involving reinfection, at variance with the non-LTR-retrotransposons (LINEs SINEs) or LTR-retrotransposons, thus recapitulating ex vivo the molecular events responsible for its dissemination in the host genomes. We also show that in vitro recombinations among present-day human HERV-K loci can similarly generate functional HERV-K elements, indicating that human cells still have the potential to produce infectious retroviruses.}, 
URL = {http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2006/10/31/gr.5565706.abstract}, 
eprint = {http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2006/10/31/gr.5565706.full.pdf+html}, 
journal = {Genome Research} 
}