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The prevalence of chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 genomes in the blood of UK blood donors
Author(s) -
Nam Leong Hoe,
Tuke Philip W.,
Tedder Richard S.,
Khanom Aysha Begum,
Eglin Roger P.,
Atkinson Claire E.,
Ward Katherine N.,
Griffiths Paul D.,
Clark Duncan A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of medical virology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 121
eISSN - 1096-9071
pISSN - 0146-6615
DOI - 10.1002/jmv.20760
Subject(s) - viral load , virology , population , human herpesvirus 6 , biology , virus , viral disease , herpesviridae , medicine , environmental health
A lesser‐recognized form of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV‐6) persistence is integration of the viral genome in a host chromosome and high viral copy numbers in blood or sera are characteristic of this phenomenon. A cross‐sectional study was performed to determine the frequency of high HHV‐6 viral loads in whole blood (>6 log 10 copies/ml) in a population of blood donors in London, UK. Blood samples from 500 anonymized blood donors were collected from one donation center, DNA extracted, and quantitative realtime PCR used to measure viral load. Four samples (0.8%) were found to have high viral copy numbers of HHV‐6 (median 6.7 log 10 copies/ml; range 6.5– 6.9 log 10 copies/ml). Cellular DNA was also quantitated using qRT‐PCR for beta‐globin. By comparing these two results, we calculated that there were between two and five copies of HHV‐6 present per cell in these four donors. The median viral load detected in plasma from the four individuals was 3.8 log 10 copies/ml (range 3.5–4.0 log 10 copies/ml). All samples were HHV‐6 variant B. In addition, a retrospective analysis of all diagnostic blood samples performed for HHV‐6 in our center showed a prevalence of 2.9% of high viral loads characteristic of integration. In conclusion, high viral copy numbers of HHV‐6, representing a population of viral integration, is detected in 0.8% of UK blood donors. The presence of high HHV‐6 viral loads in healthy normal individuals reiterates the need to consider the confounding effect of HHV‐6 viral integration in any laboratory diagnosis of HHV‐6 infection. J. Med. Virol. 79:45–51, 2007. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.