[The Role of Viruses in the Genome Evolution]

Abstract

The review presents the model of evolution with the participation of selfish genetic elements, the origin of which is directly related to the evolutionary transformation of living organisms, the genome of which is represented by viral sequences. Given the common: origin of exogenous and endogenous viruses, mobile elements of the genome identified particular exchange of genetic information: prokaryotes mainly by using DNA-containing elements, eukaryotes--RNA transposons and endogenous retroviruses. The process of evolutionary variability using exogenous viruses for eukaryotes, unlike prokaryotes, was the least successful, which brought to the fore the endogenous parasitism as the preferred way of adaptation. High dynamics of the eukaryotic genome as a cause of the whole variety of wild life was formed due to the mechanism of viral evolution. The origin of viruses had adaptive value, with the progress of genome evolution in the dynamics increasingly became involved epigenetic mechanisms of regulation of movements and sequences of viral transcription and splicing modifications of proteins and non allelic recombination.