TY - JOUR T1 - Endogenous Retrovirus Erv-3 Is Not Implicated in Rheumatoid Arthritis But May Provide a Biomarker for Osteoarthritis JF - The Journal of Rheumatology JO - J Rheumatol SP - 473 LP - 473 DO - 10.3899/jrheum.090735 VL - 37 IS - 2 AU - PAUL NELSON AU - HORA DAVARI-EJTEHADI AU - ALAN NEVILL AU - SIMON BOWMAN Y1 - 2010/02/01 UR - http://www.jrheum.org/content/37/2/473.abstract N2 - Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease with chronic inflammation of the synovial membrane culminating in the destruction of cartilage and bone. The etiology is unknown, although possible causes include viral triggers1. The latter may include human endogenous retroviral (HERV) families: HERV-K, HERV-L, ERV-9, and ERV-32,3. We have reported a novel reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) system to identify HERV-K10 and identified significantly high levels of messenger RNA in the peripheral blood (and synovial fluid) of patients with RA compared to osteoarthritis (OA) and healthy controls4. In our study, we modified the RT-PCR system to analyze ERV-3 expression in these patients. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from 20 RA patients who fulfilled American Rheumatism Association criteria were used to extract … Address correspondence to Dr. P. Nelson; E-mail: p.n.nelson{at}wlv.ac.uk ER -