POSTER

Stanley Division of Developmental Neurovirology, Johns Hopkins University School

The pathological effects of

endogenous retroviruses are largely attributed to the ability of these elements

to transpose in and out of the genome.  The transposition event can lead to the

disruption of genes or alternatively, retroviral promoter elements can alter

regulation of gene expression.  However, findings such as the reported syncytial

activity of the Human Endogenous Retrovirus W (HERV-W) envelope protein

demonstrate the fact that the expression of HERV proteins alone can alter

cellular functions.  Based on this reasoning we performed microarray analysis on

Raji cells lines expressing the full length HERV-K envelope protein and the NP-9

splice variant in order to determine if these proteins can disrupt normal gene

expression.  Although our analysis is not yet complete and we are still in the

process of verifying our results by real time PCR analysis, we have found a

number of genes to be up or down regulated by the presence of these HERV-K

envelope proteins in Raji cells.  The finding that the NP9 splice variant alters

the expression of a different set of genes then the full length HERV-K envelope

is also of interest.  This finding raises the possibility that the expression of

each truncated HERV protein, various copies of which exist in the genome, may be

capable of disrupting different cellular pathways.  Further work in our lab will

try to determine if the expression of HERV-K proteins has pathological