Laurence Bénit

TL;DR: The present data have identified a previously uncharacterized envelope with a potential role in placenta formation, and the identification of the complete set of retroviral envelopes with fusogenic properties allows a definite analysis of the possible role of HERV in this physiological process, via classical genetic approaches.

TL;DR: Together, these data strongly argue for a critical role of syncytin-A and -B in murine syncytiotrophoblast formation, thus unraveling a rather unique situation where two pairs of endogenous retroviruses, independently acquired by the primate and rodent lineages, would have been positively selected for a convergent physiological role.

TL;DR: The complete sequencing of the human genome allowed a systematic search for retroviral envelope genes containing an open reading frame and resulted in the identification of 16 genes that are characterized, showing that all 16 genes are expressed in at least some healthy human tissues, albeit at highly different levels.

TL;DR: The murine homolog of HERV-L, the human endogenous retrovirus with leucine tRNA primer, is cloned which displays fully open reading frames in the gag and pol genes, thus strongly emphasizing the gag-like origin of Fv1.

TL;DR: A general phylogenetic analysis based on the TM proteins of retroelements, and including those with no clearly identified immunosuppressive domain, could be derived and compared with pol-based phylogenetic trees, providing a comprehensive survey of retroviral elements and definitive evidence for recombination events in the generation of both the endogenous and the present-day infectious retroviruses.