Bioportfolio: lifelong persistence of variant and prototypic erythrovirus DNA genomes in human tissue.

Abstract

Human erythrovirus is a minute, single-stranded DNA virus causing many diseases, including erythema infectiosum, arthropathy, and fetal death. After primary infection, the viral genomes persist in solid tissues. Besides the prototype, virus type 1, two major variants (virus types 2 and 3) have been identified recently, the clinical significance and epidemiology of which are mostly unknown. We examined 523 samples of skin, synovium, tonsil, or liver (birth year range, 1913-2000), and 1,640 sera, by qualitative and quantitative molecular assays for the DNA of human erythroviruses. Virus types 1 and 2 were found in 132 (25%) and 58 (11%) tissues, respectively. DNA of virus type 1 was found in all age groups, whereas that of type 2 was strictly confined to those subjects born before 1973 (P < 0.001). Correspondingly, the sera from the past two decades contained DNA of type 1 but not type 2 or 3. Our data suggest strongly that the newly identified human erythrovirus type 2 as well as the prototype 1 circulated in Northern and Central Europe in equal frequency, more than half a century ago, whereafter type 2 disappeared from circulation. Type 3 never attained wide occurrence in this area during the past > or =70 years. The erythrovirus DNA persistence in human tissues is lifelong and represents a source of information about our past, the Bioportfolio, which, at the individual level, provides a registry of one's infectious encounters, and at the population level, a database for epidemiological and phylogenetic analyses.

• Authors: Päivi Norja, Kati Hokynar, Leena-Maija Aaltonen, Renwei Chen, Annamari Ranki, Esa K Partio, Olli Kiviluoto, Irja Davidkin, Tomi Leivo, Anna Maria Eis-Hübinger, Beate Schneider, Hans-Peter Fischer, René Tolba, Olli Vapalahti, Antti Vaheri, Maria Söderlund-Venermo, Klaus Hedman
• Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A) Vol. 103 Issue 19 Pg. 7450-3 (May 09 2006) ISSN: 0027-8424 [Print] United States
• PMID: 16651522 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't)

Topics

• Adolescent
• Adult
• Aged
• Aged, 80 and over
• DNA Viruses (genetics)
• Erythrovirus (genetics)
• Genetic Variation (genetics)
• Genome, Viral (genetics)
• Humans
• Life Expectancy
• Liver (virology)
• Middle Aged
• Parvoviridae Infections (blood, virology)
• Skin (virology)
• Synovial Membrane (virology)
• Time Factors