Retroviruses

Did you know your DNA is about five percent virus? It’s true. Scientists have long known that endogenous (having an internal cause or origin) retroviruses, millions of years old, make up five percent of our DNA. They had assumed this was just junk data, an evolutionary oddity, because viruses, amiright? But researchers have recently discovered it’s not junk at all, and might actually play a central role in building up the networks of our brains. Lund University’s Johan Jakobsson and his colleagues say the retroviruses seem to work to regulate which genes are expressed and when. Jakobson’s findings are based on a study of neural stem cells, which looked at the molecular mechanism the cells use to control the activation of the retroviruses. “We have been able to observe that these viruses are activated specifically in the brain cells and have an important regulatory role. We believe that the role of retroviruses can contribute to explaining why brain cells in particular are so dynamic and multifaceted in their function. It