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. 2023 Oct 19;101(12):1527–1542. doi: 10.1007/s00109-023-02385-6

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© The Author(s) 2023

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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Fig. 3 — Structure and roles of syncytins in the human body. Syncytin-1 and syncytin-2 are both involved in several physiological (left) and pathological (right) processes. In terms of structure, both genes display SU and TM units together with FP, ISD, MAD, and CYT domains. CXXC and CX6CC motives are essential for the creation of disulfide bonds between TM and SU units in protein. Syncytin-1 is involved in placenta formation (a), gamete fusion (b), prevention of viral infections (c), osteoclast formation (d), myotube formation (e), and feto-maternal immune tolerance (f). Syncytin-2 is involved in placenta formation (a) and feto-maternal immune tolerance (f). In terms of the pathogenesis of disease, syncytins were found to be involved in (g) preeclampsia, (h) tumorigenesis, (i) gestational trophoblastic disease, (j) multiple sclerosis, and (k) gestational diabetes. SU, surface unit; TM, transmembrane unit; FP, fusion peptide; ISD, immunosuppressive domain; MAD, membrane anchorage domain; CYT, cytoplasmic domain. Protein structures were generated by AlphaFold [97]. Molecular graphics performed with UCSF ChimeraX (rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax). Created in biorender.com