Syncytin-1 also known as enverin is a protein found in humans and other primates that is encoded by the ERVW-1 gene (endogenous retrovirus group W envelope member 1). Syncytin-1 is a cell-cell fusion protein whose function is best characterized in placental development. The placenta in turn aids in embryo attachment to the uterus and establishment of a nutrient supply.
Many different human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) families are expressed in normal placental tissue at high levels, suggesting that HERVs are functionally important in reproduction. This gene is part of an HERV provirus on chromosome 7 that has inactivating mutations in the gag and pol genes. This gene is the envelope glycoprotein gene which appears to have been selectively preserved. The gene's protein product is expressed in the placental syncytiotrophoblast and is involved in fusion of the cytotrophoblast cells to form the syncytial layer of the placenta. The protein has the characteristics of a typical retroviral envelope protein, including a furin cleavage site that separates the surface (SU) and transmembrane (TM) proteins which form a heterodimer. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding the same protein have been found for this gene. [provided by RefSeq, Mar 2010].
via MyGene.info
Syncytin-1 also known as enverin is a protein found in humans and other primates that is encoded by the ERVW-1 gene (endogenous retrovirus group W envelope member 1). Syncytin-1 is a cell-cell fusion protein whose function is best characterized in placental development. The placenta in turn aids in embryo attachment to the uterus and establishment of a nutrient supply.
The gene encoding this protein is an endogenous retroviral element that is the remnant of an ancient retroviral infection integrated into the primate germ line. In the case of syncytin-1 (which is found in humans, apes, and Old World but not New World monkeys), this integration likely occurred more than 25 million years ago. Syncytin-1 is one of two known syncytin proteins expressed in catarrhini primates (the other being syncytin-2) and one of many viral genomes incorporated on multiple occasions over evolutionary time in diverse mammalian species.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).