Intact EAV-HP endogenous retrovirus in Sonnerat's jungle fowl

The EAV-HP group of chicken endogenous retrovirus elements was previously s hown to be defective, with large deletions of the pol gene. In this report, we demonstrate that genomes of other Gallus species also maintain EAV-HP e lements with similar deletions. The chicken EAV-HP1 locus was detected in b oth red (Gallus gallus gallus) and Sonnerat's (Gallus sonneratii) jungle fo wl with identical integration sites, indicating that these elements had int egrated before separation of the Gallus species. Furthermore, we demonstrat e for the first time that the G. sonneratii genome carries EAV-HP elements with intact pol regions.