Bioinformatics Institute (BII), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (ASTAR), Singapore, Singapore.
Department of Computer Science, Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada.
Front Immunol. 2021 Nov 16;12:736349. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.736349. eCollection 2021.
The majority of human genome are non-coding genes. Recent research have revealed that about half of these genome sequences make up of transposable elements (TEs). A branch of these belong to the endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), which are germline viral infection that occurred over millions of years ago. They are generally harmless as evolutionary mutations have made them unable to produce viral agents and are mostly epigenetically silenced. Nevertheless, ERVs are able to express by still unknown mechanisms and recent evidences have shown links between ERVs and major proinflammatory diseases and cancers. The major challenge is to elucidate a detailed mechanistic understanding between them, so that novel therapeutic approaches can be explored. Here, we provide a brief overview of TEs, human ERVs and their links to microbiome, innate immune response, proinflammatory diseases and cancer. Finally, we recommend the employment of systems biology approaches for future HERV research.
人类基因组的大部分是非编码基因。最近的研究表明，这些基因组序列中有约一半是可移动元件（TEs）。这些 TE 中有一部分属于内源性逆转录病毒（ERVs），它们是数百万年前发生的种系病毒感染。由于进化突变使它们无法产生病毒因子，并且大多数被表观遗传沉默，因此它们通常是无害的。然而，ERVs 仍然可以通过未知的机制表达，最近的证据表明 ERVs 与主要的促炎疾病和癌症之间存在关联。主要的挑战是阐明它们之间的详细机制理解，以便探索新的治疗方法。在这里，我们简要概述了 TEs、人类 ERVs 及其与微生物组、先天免疫反应、促炎疾病和癌症的联系。最后，我们建议在未来的 HERV 研究中采用系统生物学方法。
