In this work, we demonstrated that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection leads to the modification of the human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) expression. Differential expression of multiple HERVs was found in peripheral blood mononuclear cells derived from HIV-infected patients compared to healthy donors and HIV-infected T cell cultures compared to non-infected. The effect of HIV presence on HERV expression appears to be more restricted in cells of monocytic origin, as only deregulation of HERV-W and HERV-K (HML-6) was found in these cell cultures after their infection with HIV. Multiple factors contribute to this aberrant HERV expression, and its levels appear to be modified in a time-dependent manner. Further studies and the development of optimized in vitro protocols are warranted to elucidate the interactions between HIV and HERVs in detail.
Keywords: HERV; HIV; human endogenous retroviruses; intra-viral interactions; retroviruses.