Neural Regeneration Research ›› 2025, Vol. 20 ›› Issue (3): 813-814.doi: 10.4103/NRR.NRR-D-24-00121

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Human endogenous retrovirus type-W and multiple sclerosis–related smoldering neuroinflammation

Joel Gruchot, Laura Reiche, Andrew Chan, Robert Hoepner, Patrick Küry*   

  1. Department of Neurology, Medical Faculty and University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany (Gruchot J, Reiche L, Küry P)
    Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland (Chan A, Hoepner R, Küry P)
  • Online:2025-03-15 Published:2024-06-26
  • Contact: Patrick Küry, PhD,kuery@uni-duesseldorf.de.
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the Christiane and Claudia Hempel Foundation for Regenerative Medicine and by the James and Elisabeth Cloppenburg, Peek and Cloppenburg Düsseldorf Stiftung (to PK).

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Abstract: Introduction to human endogenous retrovirus type-W (HERV-W): Genomic inheritance from the past includes retroviral sequences that have been stably incorporated into our genomes and account for up to 8% of human DNA. Such so-called human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) come in different classes and families and have attained physiological functions, hence have been domesticated, or appear to be silenced and non-functional (Jakobsson and Vincendeau, 2022). It is believed, that multiple integration events have taken place, leading to the generation of a unique interindividual genomic HERV content. Additional genetic recombination events resulted in more than 100,000 identified HERV loci within the human genome (see for more details Gruchot et al., 2023a).