High levels of transcriptional expression of HERVs in patients with CLL. The transcriptional expression of the ENV gene of HERV-K, HERV-H, SYN-1, pHERV-W, and HEMO in PBMCs of patients with CLL compared with HDs was defined by real-time PCR. The data are represented as box plots (blue box, HDs; gray box, patients with CLL). The nonparametric Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the 2 groups. ∗P ≤ .050; ∗∗P < .010.