Endogenous retrovirus up-regulated in prostate cancer

摘要

A specific member of the HERV-K family located in chromosome 22 at 20.428 megabases (22q11.2) has been found to be preferentially and significantly up-regulated in prostate tumors. The invention provides methods for diagnosing prostate cancer, comprising the step of detecting in a patient sample the presence or absence of an expression product of the virus. The virus has five features not seen in other HERV-K members: (1) its own specific nucleotide sequence, and consequently amino acid sequences; (2) tandem 5'LTRs; (3) a fragmented 3'LTR; (4) an env gene interrupted by an alu insertion; and (5) unique gag sequences.