Evolutionary Surprise: Eight Percent Of Human Genetic Material Comes From A Virus

Thursday, January 7, 2010 - 11:28 in Biology & Nature

About eight percent of human genetic material comes from a virus and not from our ancestors, according to a new study. The research shows that the genomes of humans and other mammals contain DNA derived from the insertion of bornaviruses, RNA viruses whose replication and transcription takes place in the nucleus.

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