Frequency of Human Endogenous Retroviral Sequences (HERV) K113 and K115 in the Polish Population, and Their Effect on HIV Infection

Abstract

BackgroundThe human genome contains about 8% of endogenous retroviral sequences originated from germ cell infections by exogenous retroviruses during evolution. Most of those sequences are inactive because of accumulation of mutations but some of them are still capable to be transcribed and translated. The latter are insertionally polymorphic HERV-K113 and HERV-K115. It has been suggested that their presence and expression was connected with several human diseases. It is also believed that they could interfere with the replication cycle of exogenous retroviruses, including HIV.ResultsPrevalence of endogenous retroviral sequences HERV-K113 and HERV-K115 was determined in the Polish population. The frequencies were found as 11.8% for HERV-K113 and 7.92% for HERV-K115. To verify the hypothesis that the presence of these HERVs sequences could affect susceptibility to HIV infection, comparison of a control group (HIV-negative, not exposed to HIV; n = 303) with HIV-positive patients (n = 470) and exposed but uninfected (EU) individuals (n = 121) was performed. Prevalence of HERV-K113 and HERV-K115 in the EU group was 8.26% and 5.71%, respectively. In the HIV(+) group we detected HERV-K113 sequences in 12.98% of the individuals and HERV-K115 sequences in 7.23% of the individuals. There were no statistically significant differences between groups studied.ConclusionThe frequency of HERV-K113 and HERV-K115 sequences in Poland were found to be higher than usually shown for European populations. No relation between presence of the HERVs and HIV infection was detected.

Vaccination against Endogenous Retrotransposable Element Consensus Sequences Does Not Protect Rhesus Macaques from SIVsmE660 Infection and Replication

“…Although contradictory reports exist on the relationship between HERV-K activation and HIV replication [55], [56], we, and others, have also found selected antigens to be associated with HIV infection [2]–[8]. Thus vaccination with ERE antigens represents a novel strategy for targeting host immunity to tumors or HIV-infected cells.…”

The effects of killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) genes on susceptibility to HIV-1 infection in the Polish population

“…Genomic DNA was extracted from EDTA-anticoagulated blood samples using a QIAamp DNA Blood Midi Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany). CCR5-∆32 and CCR2-64I alleles were determined as we described previously (Zwolińska et al 2013a ). KIR genotyping was performed using PCR-SSP according to our previous works (Kuśnierczyk et al 2015 ; Mozer-Lisewska et al 2015 ).…”

“…It includes the prevention of HIV entry into the cells, as it is observed for CCR5-∆32 mutation (O’Brien and Moore 2000 ; Zwolińska et al. 2013a ), the modulation of the immune response against virus, as it is shown in case of HLA and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) (Jennes et al 2006 , 2013 ; Martin et al 2002 ), and finally the specific epigenetic mechanisms of microRNA (Farberov et al 2015 ; Reynoso et al. 2014 ).…”

Genomic Analyses from Non-invasive Prenatal Testing Reveal Genetic Associations, Patterns of Viral Infections, and Chinese Population History

“…We detected many hits for human endogenous retrovirus K (HERV-K) (prevalence, $2.1%; mean abundance, 0.22) which was previously shown to be active, capable of expression in humans, and associated with HIV infection (Zwoli nska et al, 2013). All humans carry multiple copies of HERV-K in their genomes, Information about the proxy SNP can be found in Tables S5 and S6.…”

“…We observed a similar geographic distribution between HBV and HERV-K113 ( Figure 5E). HERV-K directly interacts with exogenous viruses such as HIV to reduce the infectivity of the resulting chimeric virions (Zwoli nska et al, 2013). HERV-K-HBV co-option may explain the observed geographic co-occurrence.…”