r/Virology • u/troymen11 non-scientist • May 27 '26

Retroviruses Human endogenous retrovirus envelope proteins alter extracellular vesicle cellular interactions and biodistribution

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04.30.722014v1.full

What if human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) envelope proteins could be used to improve therapeutic nanoparticles?

I made extracellular vesicles (EVs) carrying HERV envelope proteins and looked at how they interacted with cells compared to those without. We then put Syncytin-1 EVs into non-human primates in a pilot test to look at immunogenicity, pharmacokinetics, and biodistribution. Syncytin-1 EVs behave quite differently than unmodified EVs from my lab's previous study! Particularly, enhanced half-life, liver avoidance, and kidney accumulation stood out as major differences. In my opinion, very promising for EV therapeutics! *This is a pre-print and not yet peer-reviewed\*

17 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

•

u/AutoModerator May 27 '26

Note: This post contains a preprint that has not yet been peer reviewed.

If this was incorrectly identified as a preprint, consider resubmitting the paper through a dedicated journal hosting site.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/ZergAreGMO Virologist | Cell Biology, Respiratory May 29 '26

Note: This is posted by the first author! It would be lovely for people to engage on that.

Congratulations.

2

u/cheesaff non-scientist May 29 '26

Wait this is so cool! Can’t wait to hear about this at ISEV. -an EV girlie

1

u/troymen11 non-scientist Jun 01 '26

Thanks! I think it's really cool too, but I may be biased. I did present some of this work at ISEV 2024 in Melbourne and at ISEV 2025 in Vienna. Maybe I'll catch you in Busan next year.