Browsing by Subject "HERV"

Cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, CTCL, are a diverse group of non-Hodgking lymphomas that are characterized by malignant T-lymphocytes migrating to the skin. This heterogenous group of diseases may vary from the slowly progressive Mycosis fungoides to the rapidly progressing and aggressive Sezary syndrome. Since the pathomecanism of CTCL is poorly understood, there is no effective treatment for CTCL so far. Human endogenous retroviruses, HERVs, are sequences in our genome, integrated by ancient viruses. Due to insertion into our germline, these gene sequences have become a permanent part of our heredity and are therefore a tempting subject of research. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of not only the HERV encoded protein syncytin-1 itself, but also its receptors ASCT1 and ASCT2 in different cell-lines of CTCL. For comparison I used ordinary placental cells, where syncytin-1 functions as a part of the normal physiology. Besides, HERV expression has earlier been found to be involved in different pathomechanism of ours, for example the mechanisms behind T-cell leukemia and Multiple sclerosis. In this study, I used cultured CTCL cell lines Mac-1, Mac-2, MyLa and Jurkat. By using immunocytochemistry and western blot I studied the localization and relative amount of expression of the proteins of interest and found the ASCT2 receptor to be expressed in every cell line investigated while ASCT1 and syncytin-1 expression was lower. This study was the first one to show the expression of syncytin-1 receptors in CTCL. Simultaneously the results strengthens the theory of syncytin-1 being involved in the pathomechanism of CTCL and not impossibly of other malignancies as well. Hence, this study offers a new perspective to the development of CTCL treatment.