Expression Association of Human Endogenous Retrovirus Herv-K in Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis Pateints

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) constitute around 8% of the human genome. Although comprehensive studies indicated that HERVs are associated with many human autoimmune diseases, their prevalence and underlying mechanism still remain unclear. Detection of the expression level of HERV-K family is important to provide significant information to increase our understanding of autoimmune diseases’ pathogenesis. We plan to quantify, analyze gene expression and viral load of HERV-K in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis patients. The approaches will include identification and quantification of HERV-K gene expression; and detection of viral protein/particles of HERV-K from peripheral blood mononuclear cells and plasma from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis patients and healthy control group. Real-time quantitative PCR and viral protein detection methods will be applied in this study to elucidate the role of HERV-K in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. The research results may lead to new diagnostic or therapeutic methods for human autoimmune diseases.

Project ID:PC10001-1110
External Project ID:NSC99-2314-B182-024-MY3