Oluwole Steven O A, Yao Yuanrong, Conradi Sebastian, Kristensson Krister, Karlsson Håkan
Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institut, Stockholm.
Amyotroph Lateral Scler. 2007 Apr;8(2):67-72. doi: 10.1080/17482960600864207.
Retroviral components of both exogenous and endogenous origins have been associated with nervous system diseases in both animals and humans. In the present study, the levels of transcripts from elements in the human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) W family were determined in muscle biopsies from patients with motor neuron disease (MND) and control subjects. Transcripts from the HERV-W element on chromosome 7q21.2 encoding syncytin and from the SOD1 gene were detected at elevated levels in biopsies from the most affected muscles from MND patients compared to biopsies from control individuals. According to a recent study, syncytin is expressed in microglia in normal brain and can be up-regulated in macrophages/microglia during inflammation. Although syncytin may have cytotoxic effects, it is therefore more likely that the present findings reflect a macrophage response in the muscles undergoing neurogenic atrophy than a primary pathogenetic event in MND.
外源性和内源性逆转录病毒成分均与动物和人类的神经系统疾病有关。在本研究中，测定了运动神经元病（MND）患者和对照受试者肌肉活检样本中人类内源性逆转录病毒（HERV）W家族元件的转录水平。与对照个体的活检样本相比，在MND患者受影响最严重的肌肉活检样本中，位于7q21.2染色体上编码合胞素的HERV-W元件以及超氧化物歧化酶1（SOD1）基因的转录本水平升高。根据最近的一项研究，合胞素在正常大脑的小胶质细胞中表达，在炎症过程中可在巨噬细胞/小胶质细胞中上调。尽管合胞素可能具有细胞毒性作用，但因此目前的发现更可能反映了神经源性萎缩肌肉中的巨噬细胞反应，而不是MND中的原发性致病事件。
