Embryo Development Linked to a 500-Million-Year-Old Viral Infection

Interesting research.

"A critical early stage of embryonic development has been linked to a virus that mixed with the ancestral DNA of complex organisms like ourselves more than 500 million years ago.

Genetic material from endogenous retroviruses – which infected the earliest organisms on Earth, leaving markers in our DNA – is estimated to make up around 8 to 10 percent of the modern human genome.

The newly discovered link between these viruses and embryo growth has implications for creating artificial embryos and working on regenerative medicines, according to researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Center (the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Oncológicas, or CNIO)."