Human Endogenous Retrovirus Expression Is Inversely Associated with Chronic Immune Activation in HIV-1 Infection |
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Authors: | Christopher E Ormsby Devi Sengupta Ravi Tandon Steven G Deeks Jeffrey N Martin R Brad Jones Mario A Ostrowski Keith E Garrison Joel A Vázquez-Pérez Gustavo Reyes-Terán Douglas F Nixon |
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Affiliation: | Center for Research in Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Mexico City, Federal District, Mexico. |
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Abstract: | Human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) are remnants of ancestral retroviral infections integrated into the germ line, and constitute approximately 8% of the genome. Several autoimmune disorders, malignancies, and infectious diseases such as HIV-1 are associated with higher HERV expression. The degree to which HERV expression in vivo results in persistent inflammation is not known. We studied the association of immune activation and HERV-K expression in 20 subjects with chronic, untreated progressive HIV-1 infection and 10 HIV-1 negative controls. The mean HERV-K gag and env RNA expression level in the HIV-1 infected cohort was higher than in the control group (p = 0.0003), and was negatively correlated with the frequency of activated CD38+HLA-DR+CD4+ T cells (Rho = −0.61; p = 0.01) and activated CD38+HLA-DR+CD8+ T cells (Rho = −0.51; p = 0.03). Although HIV-infected persons had higher levels of HERV-K RNA expression (as expected), the level of RNA expression was negatively associated with level of T cell activation. The mechanism for this unexpected association remains to be defined. |
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