Overexpression of synoviolin in peripheral blood and synoviocytes from rheumatoid arthritis patients and continued elevation in nonresponders to infliximab treatment.

Objective: Synoviolin is a novel E3 ubiquitin ligase that has been implicated in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The purpose of this study was to examine the expression and regulation of synoviolin by tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha), both in vivo and in vitro.

Methods: A total of 54 RA patients and 23 healthy control subjects were analyzed before, 4 hours after the first infusion, and at week 22 of infliximab treatment.

Peptidylpropyl isomerase B (PPIB): a suitable reference gene for mRNA quantification in peripheral whole blood.

Quantitative real-time RT-PCR is a very powerful technique for measuring gene expression at the mRNA level. In order to compare mRNA expression in different experimental or clinical conditions, expression of a target gene has to be normalized to an appropriate internal standard, which is generally a housekeeping gene. In our study, we have tested several housekeeping genes in peripheral whole blood of healthy volunteers and patients suffering from inflammatory diseases.

Direct involvement of HERV-W Env glycoprotein in human trophoblast cell fusion and differentiation.

We recently demonstrated that the product of the HERV-W env gene, a retroviral envelope protein also dubbed syncytin, is a highly fusogenic membrane glycoprotein inducing the formation of syncytia on interaction with the type D mammalian retrovirus receptor. In addition, the detection of HERV-W Env protein (Env-W) expression in placental tissue sections led us to propose a role for this fusogenic glycoprotein in placenta formation. To evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed the involvement of Env-W in the differentiation of primary cultures of human villous cytotrophoblasts that spontaneously differentiate by cell fusion into syncytiotrophoblasts in vitro.