RESUMEN
Mammalian retroviruses cause a variety of diseases in their hosts, including hematological and immunodeficiency disorders. Both human T-cell leukemia (HTLV) and human immunodeficiency (HIV) viruses originated from several independent zoonotic transmissions, indicating that cross-species transmissions from animal to humans may still occur. Thus, as the risk for retroviral transmissions from animals to humans increase, we investigated whether mammalian retroviruses are involved in selected pediatric idiopathic diseases whose symptoms evoke retroviral infections. Blood samples, sera, and synovial fluids, or bone marrow cells were collected from pediatric patients under 18 years of age with different autoimmune idiopathic diseases. Overall, we screened clinical samples from 110 children using sensitive nested and semi-nested PCR strategies targeting env genes, and a C-type retrovirus reverse transcriptase (RT) activity kit. All clinical samples were free of retroviral signatures, indicating the unlikelihood of an etiological role of the retroviruses we assessed in the pediatric diseases we tested.
Asunto(s)
Enfermedades Autoinmunes/etiología , Enfermedades Autoinmunes/patología , Infecciones por Retroviridae/patología , Infecciones por Retroviridae/virología , Retroviridae/aislamiento & purificación , Adolescente , Niño , Preescolar , Productos del Gen env/genética , Humanos , Lactante , Reacción en Cadena de la Polimerasa , ADN Polimerasa Dirigida por ARN/análisis , Retroviridae/genéticaRESUMEN
Retroviruses have been linked to a variety of diseases such as neoplastic and immunodeficiency disorders and neurologic and respiratory diseases. Recently, a novel infectious human retrovirus, the xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV), has been identified in cohorts of patients with either a familial type of prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome. The apparent unrelatedness of these diseases raised the question of the potential involvement of XMRV in other diseases.Here, we investigated the presence of XMRV in a selection of pediatric idiopathic infectious diseases with symptoms that are suggestive of a retroviral infection, as well as in children with respiratory diseases and in adult patients with spondyloarthritis (SpA). Using a XMRV env-nested PCR, we screened 72 DNA samples obtained from 62 children hospitalized in the Montpellier university hospital (France) for hematological, neurological or inflammatory pathologies, 80 DNA samples from nasopharyngeal aspirates from children with respiratory diseases and 19 DNA samples from SpA. None of the samples tested was positive for XMRV or MLV-like env sequences, indicating that XMRV is not involved in these pathologies.