Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) are the remnants of viral infections that occurred in our ancestors, subsequently integrated into the human genome. They make up about 8% of the human genome. Increased HERV expression occurs in physiological and pathological conditions, especially neurological diseases. The aim of this study was to compare the expression of HERV‐W envelope (env) and polymerase (pol) genes in two groups of epilepsy and multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with healthy individuals. In this study, 35 MS and 35 epilepsy patients and 70 healthy individuals were enrolled. RNA was extracted from peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and cDNA was synthesized. Subsequently, the relative gene expression of HERV‐W was assessed in all samples using real‐time PCR. The HERV‐W/env gene was detected in 4.28% of healthy individuals, 5.71% of epilepsy, and 20% of patients with MS. The gene’s expression was significantly different between healthy controls and MS patients ( p = 0.015) but not between the control group and epilepsy patients ( p > 0.05). MS patients have a significantly higher relative expression of env gene than the healthy group ( p = 0.0167). The HERV‐W pol gene was found in 2.85% of healthy individuals, 2.85% of epilepsy, and 5.71% of MS patients. There was no significant difference in the frequency of this gene across the different groups ( p > 0.05). The research findings indicate that there may be an association between the expressions of the HERV‐W/env genes in MS patients. Additionally, it revealed no correlation between the rate of HERV‐W infection and patients with epilepsy.
Mahdavi et al. (Thu,) studied this question.