Pisano Maria Paola, Grandi Nicole, Tramontano Enzo
Laboratory of Molecular Virology, Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Cagliari, 09042 Cagliari, Italy.
Biology (Basel). 2021 May 5;10(5):405. doi: 10.3390/biology10050405.
Human Endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) and Mammalian Apparent LTRs Retrotransposons (MaLRs) are remnants of ancient retroviral infections that represent a large fraction of our genome. The HERV and MaLR transcriptional activity is regulated in developmental stages, adult tissues, and pathological conditions. In this work, we used a bioinformatics approach based on RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) to study the expression and modulation of HERVs and MaLR in a scenario of activation of the immune response. We analyzed transcriptome data from subjects before and after the administration of an inactivated vaccine against the Hantaan orthohantavirus, the causative agent of Korean hemorrhagic fever, to investigate the HERV and MaLR expression and differential expression in response to the administration of the vaccine. Specifically, we described the HERV transcriptome in PBMCs and identified HERV and MaLR loci differentially expressed after the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th inactivated vaccine administrations. We found that the expression of 545 HERV and MaLR elements increased in response to the vaccine and that the activation of several individual HERV and MaLR loci is specific for each vaccine administration and correlated to different genes and immune-related pathways.
人类内源性逆转录病毒（HERVs）和哺乳动物表观LTR逆转座子（MaLRs）是古代逆转录病毒感染的残余物，它们在我们的基因组中占很大一部分。HERV和MaLR的转录活性在发育阶段、成人组织和病理条件下受到调控。在这项工作中，我们使用了一种基于RNA测序（RNA-seq）的生物信息学方法，来研究在免疫反应激活的情况下HERVs和MaLR的表达及调控。我们分析了接种针对韩国出血热病原体汉坦病毒的灭活疫苗前后受试者的转录组数据，以研究HERV和MaLR的表达以及对疫苗接种的差异表达。具体而言，我们描述了外周血单核细胞（PBMCs）中的HERV转录组，并鉴定了在第2、3和4次接种灭活疫苗后差异表达的HERV和MaLR基因座。我们发现，545个HERV和MaLR元件的表达因疫苗接种而增加，并且几个单独的HERV和MaLR基因座的激活对于每次疫苗接种都是特异性的，并且与不同的基因和免疫相关途径相关。
