For millions of years, retroviral infections have challenged vertebrates, occasionally leading to germline integration and inheritance as ERVs, genetic parasites whose remnants today constitute some 7% to 8% of the human genome. Although they have had significant evolutionary side effects, it is useful to view ERVs as fossil representatives of retroviruses extant at the time of their insertion into the germline and not as direct players in the evolutionary process itself. Expression of particular ERVs is associated with several positive physiological functions as well as certain diseases, although their roles in human disease as etiological agents, possible contributing factors, or disease markers-well demonstrated in animal models-remain to be established. Here we discuss ERV contributions to host genome structure and function, including their ability to mediate recombination, and physiological effects on the host transcriptome resulting from their integration, expression, and other events.

中文翻译：

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逆转录病毒对宿主基因组功能的影响。

数百万年以来，逆转录病毒感染一直挑战着脊椎动物，偶尔导致种系整合和遗传，成为ERVs，ERV是一种遗传寄生虫，如今其残留物构成了人类基因组的7％至8％。尽管它们具有显着的进化副作用，但将ERV视为逆转录病毒的化石代表（将其插入种系时已存在），而不是其在进化过程中的直接作用，这很有用。特定ERV的表达与几种积极的生理功能以及某些疾病有关，尽管它们在人类疾病中作为病原体，可能的促成因素或疾病标记的作用已在动物模型中得到证实，但仍有待确定。在这里，我们讨论了ERV对宿主基因组结构和功能的贡献，