Functional Analysis of Endogenous Retroviral Elements in Human Genome---Possible Association with Cancers

We propose an international collaborative project aimed at the role of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) in cancers. Although comprehensive studies indicated that HERVs are associated with human cancers, their prevalence and underlying mechanism remain unclear. We plan to update our HERV database and to analyze structure of the retroelements. We will use high throughput sequencing technology to generate whole transcriptome sequences for breast cancer, gastric and pancreatic cancers and possibly also for oral cancers. We will use bioinformatics to identify target transcripts of HERVs’ or HERV-driven human genes. We will also conduct functional analysis for target HERVs’ transcripts to study a possible role of these HERV genes or HERV-driven genes in disease onset or progression. This study will contribute to our understanding of HERVs activities in human genome and will help to elucidate their roles in human carcinogenesis. Our findings may lead to new diagnostic or therapeutic methods for cancer diseases. This collaborative study will start a new research model between the Czech and Taiwan researchers.

Project ID:PC9902-2316
External Project ID:NSC99-2923-B182-001-MY3