PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - H D Ejtehadi
AU  - G L Freimanis
AU  - H A Ali
AU  - S Bowman
AU  - A Alavi
AU  - J Axford
AU  - R Callaghan
AU  - P N Nelson
TI  - The potential role of human endogenous retrovirus K10 in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis: a preliminary study
AID  - 10.1136/ard.2004.031146
DP  - 2006 May 01
TA  - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases
PG  - 612--616
VI  - 65
IP  - 5
4099  - http://ard.bmj.com/content/65/5/612.short
4100  - http://ard.bmj.com/content/65/5/612.full
SO  - Ann Rheum Dis2006 May 01; 65
AB  - Objective: To examine whether human endogenous retrovirus K10 is associated with autoimmune rheumatic disease. Design: A novel multiplex reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) system was developed to investigate HERV-K10 mRNA expression in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Methods: 40 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, 17 with osteoarthritis, and 27 healthy individuals were recruited and total RNA was extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and analysed using multiplex RT-PCR for the level of HERV-K10 gag mRNA expression. Southern blot and DNA sequencing confirmed the authenticity of the PCR products. Results: Using the histidyl tRNA synthetase (HtRNAS) gene as a housekeeping gene in the optimised multiplex RT-PCR, a significantly higher level of HERV-K10 gag mRNA expression was found in rheumatoid arthritis than in osteoarthritis (p = 0.01) or in the healthy controls (p = 0.02). Conclusion: There is enhanced mRNA expression of the HERV-K10 gag region in rheumatoid arthritis compared with osteoarthritis or healthy controls. This could contribute to the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis.