Human Endogenous Retrovirus Expression Is Inversely Associated with Chronic Immune Activation in HIV-1 Infection

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 7; no. 8; p. e41021
• Main Authors: Ormsby, Christopher E., SenGupta, Devi, Tandon, Ravi, Deeks, Steven G., Martin, Jeffrey N., Jones, R. Brad, Ostrowski, Mario A., Garrison, Keith E., Vázquez-Pérez, Joel A., Reyes-Terán, Gustavo, Nixon, Douglas F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 07.08.2012; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adult; Antiretroviral drugs; Apoptosis; Autoimmune diseases; Biology; Breast cancer; Case-Control Studies; CD38 antigen; CD4 antigen; CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes - immunology; CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes - virology; CD8 antigen; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes - immunology; CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes - virology; Cell activation; Chronic infection; Communicable diseases; Control; Cytomegalovirus; Cytotoxicity; Demography; Drug therapy; Endogenous retroviruses; Endogenous Retroviruses - genetics; Endogenous Retroviruses - immunology; Female; Gene expression; Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; Genomes; Genomics; Health aspects; Histocompatibility antigen HLA; HIV; HIV Infections - immunology; HIV Infections - virology; HIV-1 - immunology; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Immunity - immunology; Immunology; Infections; Infectious diseases; Inflammation; Lymphocytes; Lymphocytes T; Male; Medicine; Middle Aged; Respiratory diseases; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; RNA, Viral - genetics; RNA, Viral - metabolism; T cell receptors; T cells; Viral infections; Canada; Mexico; San Francisco California; California; Toronto Ontario Canada; United States > US
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041021

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.