addition, the insertion of ERVs and their respective LTRs have the potential to induce chromosomal rearrangement due to recombination between viral sequences at inter-chromosomal loci. These rearrangements have been shown to induce gene duplications and deletions that largely contribute to genome plasticity and dramatically change the dynamic of gene function. Furthermore, retroelements in general are largely prevalent in rapidly evolving, mammal-specific gene families whose function is largely related to the response to stress and external stimuli. In particular, both human class I and class II MHC genes have a high density of HERV elements as compared to other multi-locus-gene families. It has been shown that HERVs have contributed to the formation of extensively duplicated duplicon blocks that make up the HLA class 1 family of genes. More specifically, HERVs primarily occupy regions within and between the break points between these blocks, suggesting that considerable duplication and deletions events, typically associated with unequal crossover, facilitated their formation. The generation of these blocks, inherited as immunohaplotypes, act as a protective polymorphism against a wide range of antigens that may have imbued humans with an advantage over other primates. The characteristic of placentas being very evolutionary distinct organs between different species has been suggested to result from the co-option of ERV enhancers. Regulatory mutations, instead of mutations in genes that encode for hormones and growth factors, support the known evolution of placental morphology, especially since the majority of hormone and growth factor genes are expressed in response to pregnancy, not during placental development. Researchers studied the regulatory landscape of placental development between the rat and mouse, two closely related species. This was done by mapping all regulatory elements of the rat trophoblast stem cells (TSCs) and comparing them to their orthologs in mouse TSCs. TSCs were observed because they reflect the initial cells that develop in the fetal placenta. Regardless of their tangible similarities, enhancer and repressed regions were mostly species-specific. However, most promoter sequences were conserved between mouse and rat. In conclusion to their study, researchers proposed that ERVs influenced species-specific placental evolution through mediation of placental growth, immunosuppression, and cell fusion. Another example of ERV exploiting cellular mechanisms is p53, a tumor suppressor gene (TSG). DNA damage and cellular stress induces the p53 pathway, which results in cell apoptosis. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation with sequencing, thirty-percent of all p53-binding sites were located within copies of a few primate-specific ERV families. A study