Human Endogenous Retrovirus K (HML-2) in Health and Disease

Frontiers in Microbiology

David J. Kelvin¹  Bei Xue²  Leonardo A. Sechi⁴ 

[1] Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy;Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Canadian Center for Vaccinology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada;Division of Immunology, Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, China;Mediterranean Center for Disease Control, University of Sassari, Sassari, Italy;

关键词: HERV-K (HML-2);    viral proteins;    LTR;    polymorphic integration;    diseases;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fmicb.2020.01690

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are derived from exogenous retrovirus infections in the evolution of primates and account for about 8% of the human genome. They were considered as silent passengers within our genomes for a long time, however, reactivation of HERVs has been associated with tumors and autoimmune diseases, especially the HERV-K (HML-2) family, the most recent integration groups with the least number of mutations and the most biologically active to encode functional retroviral proteins and produce retrovirus-like particles. Increasing studies are committed to determining the potential role of HERV-K (HML-2) in pathogenicity. Although there is still no evidence for HERV-K (HML-2) as a direct cause of diseases, aberrant expression profiles of the HERV-K (HML-2) transcripts and their regulatory function to their proximal host-genes were identified in different diseases. In this review, we summarized the advances between HERV-K (HML-2) and diseases to provide basis for further studies on the causal relationship between HERV-K (HML-2) and diseases. We recommended more attention to polymorphic integrated HERV-K (HML-2) loci which could be genetic causative factors and be associated with inter-individual differences in tumorigenesis and autoimmune diseases.

【 授权许可】

Unknown