The human endogenous retrovirus ERV-3 is upregulated in differentiating placental trophoblast cells.
The single copy endogenous retrovirus locus ERV-3 is known to be primarily expressed in the placenta. The absence of expression of this gene in choriocarcinoma cell lines has led to speculation that this may be a defect associated with this abnormality. We show here that ERV-3 is not normally expressed in the cytotrophoblast from which these tumour cells are derived but is expressed in normal syncytiotrophoblast. The conservation of the ERV-3 open reading frame for env in ape and old world monkey species and its tight regulation and site of expression suggest a functional role for this gene in this tissue.
Chester Beatty Laboratories, Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom.
M T
MT
Boyd
C M
CM
Bax
B E
BE
Bax
D L
DL
Bloxam
R A
RA
Weiss
D001483:Base Sequence; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D002822:Choriocarcinoma / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011247:Pregnancy; D012190:Retroviridae / Q000254:growth & development*; D014327:Trophoblasts / Q000166:cytology / Q000382:microbiology*; D014407:Tumor Cells, Cultured; D015854:Up-Regulation