Real-time PCR detection of Human Herpesvirus 1-5 in patients lacking clinical signs of a viral CNS infection

BMC Infectious Diseases

Research Article

Magnus Lindh¹  Tina Falkeborn²  Britt Åkerlind²  Birgitta Sundén²  Urban Forsum²  Lena Serrander²  Liselotte Ydrenius²  Marie Larsson²  Jakob Paues³ 

[1] Department of Infectious Diseases, Section for Clinical Virology, University of Gothenburg, SE- 413 46, Gothenburg, Sweden;Div Clinical Microbiology, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, SE-581 85, Linköping, Sweden;Div Infectious Diseases, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Linköping University, SE-581 85, Linköping, Sweden;

关键词: Human Herpes Virus;    Central Nervous System Infection;    Multiple Displacement Amplification;    Multiple Displacement Amplification Product;    Viral Central Nervous System Infection;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2334-11-220

 received in 2010-12-16, accepted in 2011-08-17,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundInfections of the central nervous system (CNS) with herpes- or enterovirus can be self-limiting and benign, but occasionally result in severe and fatal disease. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has revolutionized the diagnostics of viral pathogens, and by multiple displacement amplification (MDA) prior to real-time PCR the sensitivity might be further enhanced. The aim of this study was to investigate if herpes- or enterovirus can be detected in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from patients without symptoms.MethodsCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples from 373 patients lacking typical symptoms of viral CNS infection were analysed by real-time PCR targeting herpesviruses or enteroviruses with or without prior MDA.ResultsIn total, virus was detected in 17 patients (4%). Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was most commonly detected, in general from patients with other conditions (e.g. infections, cerebral hemorrhage). MDA satisfactorily amplified viral DNA in the absence of human nucleic acids, but showed poor amplification capacity for viral DNA in CSF samples, and did not increase the sensitivity for herpes virus-detection with our methodology.ConclusionsViral pathogens are rarely detected in CSF from patients without signs of CNS infection, supporting the view that real-time PCR is a highly specific method to detect symptomatic CNS-infection caused by these viruses. However, EBV may be subclinically reactivated due to other pathological conditions in the CNS.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Sundén et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.