Contribution of type W human endogenous retroviruses to the human genome: characterization of HERV-W proviral insertions and processed pseudogenes.

The present work is a detailed overview of the HERV-W contribution to the human genome and provides a robust genetic background useful to clarify HERV-W role in pathologies with poorly understood etiology, representing, to our knowledge, the most complete and exhaustive HERV-W dataset up to date.