{"id":245068,"date":"2026-10-08T17:04:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/dna-from-a-human-brain-gene-has-turned-up-in-a-virus"},"modified":"2026-10-08T17:04:48","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T22:04:48","slug":"dna-from-a-human-brain-gene-has-turned-up-in-a-virus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/dna-from-a-human-brain-gene-has-turned-up-in-a-virus","title":{"rendered":"DNA From a Human Brain Gene Has Turned Up In a Virus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/dna-from-a-human-brain-gene-has-turned-up-in-a-virus.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A surprising leap across genomes.<\/p>\n<p>#ScienceNews #ScienceAlert #ScienceDiscoveries #StayCurious<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Some pieces of our DNA can copy themselves into new locations. Copies derived from one gene active in human brain cells appear to have taken that journey further: into a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/virus\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_self\">virus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers found two such sequences, derived from a gene called BC200, inside molluscum contagiosum virus, which infects our skin and causes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/poxvirus\/molluscum-contagiosum\/\">small, raised lesions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery reveals an unusual genetic double life. BC200 acquired a cellular role millions of years ago, yet retained the ability to produce copies that insert themselves elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A surprising leap across genomes. #ScienceNews #ScienceAlert #ScienceDiscoveries #StayCurious Some pieces of our DNA can copy themselves into new locations. Copies derived from one gene active in human brain cells appear to have taken that journey further: into a virus. Researchers found two such sequences, derived from a gene called BC200, inside molluscum contagiosum virus, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":579,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/579"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245068\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}