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Race for Survival: Retroviruses Are Re-writing the Koala Genome and Causing Cancer – SciTechDaily
The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus that, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000…
Koala in the Wild. Credit: A. Gillett
The koala retrovirus (KoRV) is a virus that, like other retroviruses such as HIV, inserts itself into the DNA of an infected cell. At some point in the past 50,000 years, KoRV has infected the egg or sperm cells of koalas, leading to offspring that carry the retrovirus in every cell in their body.
The entire koala population of Queensland and New South Wales in Australia now carry copies of KoRV in their genome. All animals, including humans, have gone through…
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