Human endogenous retroviruses and cancer

Human endogenous retroviruses（HERVs） are retroviruses that infected human genome millions of years ago and have persisted throughout human evolution. About 8% of our genome is composed of HERVs, most of which are nonfunctional because of epigenetic control or deactivating mutations. However, a corre...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cancer biology & medicine 2016-12, Vol.13 (4), p.483-488
Main Authors: Gonzalez-Cao, María, Iduma, Paola, Karachaliou, Niki, Santarpia, Mariacarmela, Blanco, Julià, Rosell, Rafael
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antigens
Binding sites
Breast cancer
cancer
Cancer therapies
CD8 antigen
Combined vaccines
Deoxyribonucleic acid
DNA
DNA methylation
Enzymes
Epigenetics
Genes
Genomes
HERVs
Immune checkpoint
Immune response
Immunoglobulins
Immunosuppressive agents
immunotherapy
Interferon
Lymphocytes
Melanoma
Metastasis
Mutation
Ovarian cancer
Protein expression
Proteins
Renal cell carcinoma
Review
Sensors
Skin cancer
Tumors
Viruses
人类基因组
免疫反应
免疫调节剂
内源性逆转录病毒
生殖细胞
癌症
遗传控制
黑色素瘤
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Human endogenous retroviruses（HERVs） are retroviruses that infected human genome millions of years ago and have persisted throughout human evolution. About 8% of our genome is composed of HERVs, most of which are nonfunctional because of epigenetic control or deactivating mutations. However, a correlation between HERVs and human cancer has been described and many tumors, such as melanoma, breast cancer, germ cell tumors, renal cancer or ovarian cancer, express HERV proteins, mainly HERV-K（HML6） and HERV-K（HML2）. Although the causative role of HERVs in cancer is controversial, data from animal models demonstrated that endogenous retroviruses are potentially oncogenic. HERV protein expression in human cells generates an immune response by activating innate and adaptive immunities. Some HERV-derived peptides have antigenic properties. For example, HERV-K（HML-6） encodes the HER-K MEL peptide recognized by CD8＋ lymphocytes. In addition, HERVs are twoedged immunomodulators. HERVs show immunosuppressive activity. The presence of genomic retroviral elements in host-cell cytosol may activate an interferon type I response. Therefore, targeting HERVs through cellular vaccines or immunomodulatory drugs combined with checkpoint inhibitors is attracting interest because they could be active in human tumors.
ISSN:2095-3941
2095-3941
DOI:10.20892/j.issn.2095-3941.2016.0080