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Updated: Sep 1, 2025

Microarray-based Identification of Individual HERV Loci Expression: Application to Biomarker Discovery in Prostate Cancer
Published on: November 2, 2013
Z-DNA-Containing Long Terminal Repeats of Human Endogenous Retrovirus Families Provide Alternative Promoters for
Du Hyeong Lee1,2,3, Woo Hyeon Bae1,2,3, Hongseok Ha4,3
1Department of Integrated Biological Sciences, Pusan National University, Busan 46241, Korea.
Abstract:
Transposable elements (TEs) account for approximately 45% of the human genome. TEs have proliferated randomly and integrated into functional genes during hominoid radiation. They appear as right-handed B-DNA double helices and slightly elongated left-handed Z-DNAs. Human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) families are widely distributed in human chromosomes at a ratio of 8%. They contain a 5'-long terminal repeat (LTR)-gag-pol-env-3'-LTR structure. LTRs contain the U3 enhancer and promoter region, transcribed R region, and U5 region. LTRs can influence host gene expression by acting as regulatory elements. In this review, we describe the alternative promoters derived from LTR elements that overlap Z-DNA by comparing Z-hunt and DeepZ data for human functional genes. We also present evidence showing the regulatory activity of LTR elements containing Z-DNA in GSDML. Taken together, the regulatory activity of LTR elements with Z-DNA allows us to understand gene function in relation to various human diseases.
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