9The SERINC gene family comprises of five paralogs in humans of which SERINC3 and 10 SERINC5 inhibit HIV-1 infectivity and are counteracted by Nef. The origin of this anti-retroviral 11 activity, its prevalence among the remaining human paralogs, and its ability to target 12 retroviruses remain largely unknown. Here we show that despite their early divergence, the 13 anti-retroviral activity is functionally conserved among four human SERINC paralogs with 14 SERINC2 being an exception. The lack of activity in human SERINC2 is associated with its 15 post-whole genome duplication (WGD) divergence, as evidenced by the ability of pre-WGD 16 orthologs from yeast, fly, and a post-WGD-proximate SERINC2 from coelacanth to inhibit nef-17 defective HIV-1. Intriguingly, potent retroviral factors from HIV-1 and MLV are not able to relieve 18 the SERINC2-mediated particle infectivity inhibition, indicating that such activity was directed 19 towards other retroviruses that are found in coelacanth (like foamy viruses). However, foamy-20 derived vectors are intrinsically resistant to the action of SERINC2, and we show that a foamy 21 virus envelope confers this resistance. Despite the presence of weak arms-race signatures, the 22 functional reciprocal adaptation among SERINC2 and SERINC5 and, in response, the 23 emergence of antagonizing ability in foamy virus appears to have resulted from a long-term 24 conflict with the host. 25 26 27 28 Introduction
29Viruses have been exploiting the host machinery for their persistence, and, in response, the 30 host has continued to evolve increasingly intricate antiviral defense strategies. As part of this 31 ongoing arms-race, while viruses have relied on acquisition and fusion of diverse genes (1), 32 the host-defense mechanism has been made possible by the functional divergence of gene 33 copies following duplication of genes as well as whole-genomes (2-7). Restriction factors being 34 at the forefront of this long-term conflict (8-10), show clear molecular signatures of arms-race 35 (11,12). In fact, the presence of these signatures has been proposed to be a hallmark of 36 restriction factors (8,13), and has been used as a screening strategy to identify potential 37 candidates (2,14). In contrast, the recently identified anti-retroviral host inhibitors SERINC5 and 38 SERINC3 display an uneventful evolutionary history (15). This is counterintuitive, because 39 distant retroviruses, with wide host-range, encode anti-SERINC5 virulent factors (16)(17)(18). We,
40Ramdas et al.therefore, sought to trace the origins of this antiretroviral activity and its relevance for retroviral 41 inhibition. Our analysis to comprehend the evolutionary origins of the antiretroviral activity in 42 SERINCs, identifies an active SERINC2 with a hitherto unknown interaction with a foamy virus.
44
Results
45Antiretroviral activity among human SERINC paralogs 46 Analysis of sequence similarity and gene structure conservation reveals that SERINC5 and 47 SERINC4 share a recent ancestry (Fig-S1). Similarly, SERINC3 and...