Activity of human endogenous retrovirus in Kawasaki disease, leukemia, HTLV-1 infec-tion or chronic fatigue syndrome

我们研究了人内源性逆转录病毒（HERV）在川崎（KD）病因学中的可能参与，川崎病被假设为超抗原（SA）疾病。虽然细菌SA已被广泛研究，但本研究集中于HERV相关SA，其在EB病毒（EBV）感染后可诱导。由HERV相关SA诱导的Vbeta7的表达在对照和KD患者之间总体上是相当的。然而，KD患者的一个亚组显示具有较大的V β 7阳性T细胞群体，并且其中许多人具有EBV病毒血症。相反，在具有较少V β 7阳性T细胞的那些人中未检测到EBV病毒血症。我们的研究结果表明，EBV诱导的HERV相关SA可能参与了KD患者亚组的病因。

We investigated possible involvement of human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) in the etiology of Kawasaki disease (KD) that is hypothesized as a superantigen (SA) disease. While bacterial SAs have been extensively studied, this study has focused on HERV-associated SA, which is inducible upon EB virus (EBV) infection. Expression of Vbeta7 that is induced by HERV-associated SA was comparable between control and KD patients as a whole. However, a subgroup of KD patients was shown to have larger population of Vbeta7-positive T cells, and many of them had EBV viremia. In contrast, EBV viremia was not detected in those with less Vbeta7-positive T cells. Our results suggest that EBV-induced HERV-associated SA may be involved in the etiology of a subgroup of KD patients.