Expression of Human Endogenous Gammaretroviral Sequences in Endometriosis and Ovarian Cancer

Lijuan Hu, Daniela Hornung, Raffael Kurek, Helen Östman, Helen Ostman, Jonas Blomberg, Agneta Bergqvist
AIDS research and human retroviruses · 2006 · vol. 22(6) , pp. 551–557 · doi:10.1089/aid.2006.22.551 · PMID:16796530 · W1991840700
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This study found significantly higher HERV-E RNA expression in endometriotic tissue compared to normal endometrium, and distinct HERV-E and HERV-W expression patterns in normal versus cancerous ovarian tissue.

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Abstract

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) probably originate from ancient germ cell infections by exogenous retroviruses. A high expression of retroviruses in reproductive tissue increases the risk of viral transmission to germ line cells. We therefore investigated the expression of human ERVs (HERVs) in normal endometrium, endometriosis, normal ovaries, and ovarian cancer. Four real-time PCRs (QPCRs) for HERV-E, HERV-I/T, HERV-H, and HERV-W, respectively, and an expression control gene were used. HERV-E RNA expression was significantly higher in endometriotic tissue (average, SD) than in normal endometrium (average, SD), both measured as ratios versus control gene expression and as. HERV-E and HERV-W RNA were higher in normal ovarian tissue than in ovarian cancer. This illustrates that HERV expression is not automatically higher in malignant tissues. The other HERV PCRs did not show expression patterns as distinctive as HERVE and HERV-W in the two kinds of reproductive tissue. A small number of candidate HERV-E loci from which the transcription took place were identified by sequencing of amplimers. The role of HERV-E and HERV-W in endometriosis merits further investigation.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endogenous Retroviruses Endometriosis Gammaretrovirus Ovarian Neoplasms Base Sequence Cloning, Molecular Endogenous Retroviruses Endogenous Retroviruses Endometriosis Endometrium Endometrium Female Gammaretrovirus Gammaretrovirus Humans Molecular Sequence Data Ovarian Neoplasms Ovary Ovary Polymerase Chain Reaction

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