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

我们调查了人类内源性逆转录病毒（HERV）在川崎病（KD）病因学中的可能参与，川崎病被假设为一种超抗原（SA）疾病。虽然细菌性SA已被广泛研究，但本研究主要集中在herv相关的SA，它可被EB病毒（EBV）感染诱导。由herv相关SA诱导的Vbeta7表达在对照组和KD患者之间具有可比性。然而，KD患者的一个亚组显示有更多的vbeta7阳性T细胞，其中许多人患有EBV病毒血症。相比之下，在vbeta7阳性T细胞较少的患者中未检测到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患者亚组的病因学。

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.