Bergallo Massimiliano, Montanari Paola, Mareschi Katia, Merlino Chiara, Berger Massimo, Bini Ilaria, Daprà Valentina, Galliano Ilaria, Fagioli Franca
Department of Public Health and Pediatric Sciences, University of Turin, Medical School, 10136, Turin, Italy.
Pediatric Onco-Hematology and Stem Cell Transplantation and Cell Therapy Division, City of Science and Health of Turin, 10136, Turin, Italy.
Arch Virol. 2017 Dec;162(12):3639-3644. doi: 10.1007/s00705-017-3526-7. Epub 2017 Aug 18.
The human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are a family of endogenous retroviruses that integrated into the germ cell DNA of primates over 30 million years ago. HERV expression seems impaired in several diseases, ranging from autoimmune to neoplastic disorders. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the overall endogenous retroviral transcription profile in bone marrow (BM) samples. A total of 30 paediatric high-risk leukaemia patients (lymphoid and myeloid malignancies) were tested for HERVs virus gene expression. Our findings show that HERV-K expression was significantly higher in leukaemia patients when compared to healthy donors of a similar median age. We observed a significantly high expression of HERV-K in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) patients. In this study, we also found a relative overexpression of the endogenous retrovirus HERV-K in BM cells from the majority of leukemia samples analyzed, in particular in ALL. This overexpression might be related to lymphatic leukemogenesis and it warrants further investigations.
人类内源性逆转录病毒（HERVs）是一类内源性逆转录病毒家族，它们在三千多万年前整合到灵长类动物的生殖细胞DNA中。HERV的表达在多种疾病中似乎受到损害，范围从自身免疫性疾病到肿瘤性疾病。本研究的目的是评估骨髓（BM）样本中的整体内源性逆转录病毒转录谱。总共对30名儿科高危白血病患者（淋巴和髓系恶性肿瘤）进行了HERVs病毒基因表达检测。我们的研究结果表明，与年龄中位数相似的健康供体相比，白血病患者中HERV-K的表达明显更高。我们观察到急性淋巴细胞白血病（ALL）患者中HERV-K的表达显著升高。在本研究中，我们还发现，在分析的大多数白血病样本的BM细胞中，尤其是在ALL中，内源性逆转录病毒HERV-K相对过表达。这种过表达可能与淋巴白血病发生有关，值得进一步研究。
