Prevalence and genomic variability of transfusion transmitted virus in Italian cryptogenic chronic liver disease and healthy blood donors

Prevalence and Genotyping of Torque Teno Virus in HBV/HIV and Chronic HBV Patients in Iran

Background:

Torque teno virus (TTV) was the first human Anelloviridae detected in a Japanese patient with an unknown type of hepatitis in 1997. TTV is by far the first known single-stranded circular DNA virus infecting human. In spite of its widespread nature in human population, its pathogenesis is still unclear. In addition, information regarding TTV infection in Iranian population is limited. Therefore, we attempted to determine the prevalence and genotype of

TTV in three groups:

HIV/HBV patients, chronic hepatitis B patients, and healthy individuals.

Methods:

The presence of TTV DNA in sera was investigated using PCR. The primer sets encompassing two 5’-UTR and N22 regions were used, and the positive products were collected for sequencing. Phylogenetic tree was generated based on N22 region and using the MEGA 7 software.

Results:

TTV DNA was detected in 452 patients with HIV/HBV and chronic hepatitis B, as well as in healthy control groups. The results from PCR indicated positive rates for these three groups 48%, 54%, and 49.3% using 5’-UTR primer and 15.1%, 12%, and 8% using N22 primer, respectively.

Conclusion:

Five genogroups were observed, which the second group was found to be the most frequent. The results of 5’-UTR primer showed more prevalence of TTV DNA comparing to N22 primer in patients and healthy control.

TT virus infection in patients on peritoneal dialysis in Taiwan

Many studies have reported the prevalence of transfusion-transmitted virus (TTV) infection in hemodialysis patients, but few reports studied the prevalence of TTV infection in peritoneal dialysis patients. In this study, we determined the prevalence of TTV in a peritoneal dialysis population in Taiwan and related its prevalence with history of blood transfusion, serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), antibody to hepatitis C virus (anti-HCV), and serum aminotransferases (AST and ALT) levels. Serum samples from 47 peritoneal dialysis patients and a control group of 43 patients at health examination were studied for TTV viremia by using polymerase chain reaction. The rate of blood transfusion exposure (p < 0.0001), female gender (p = 0.001), younger age (p = 0.0014), and serum AST level (p = 0.012) were significantly higher in peritoneal dialysis patients. The prevalence of TTV viremia was not significantly different between peritoneal dialysis patients and the control group (23.4% vs. 37.2%). TTV infection was not associated with evident liver diseases in peritoneal dialysis patients, and the infection rate was not different between automated peritoneal dialysis (APD) and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) patients. There was no statistically significant association between TTV infection and age, gender, transfusion history, duration of peritoneal dialysis, AST level, ALT level, HBsAg, or anti-HCV seropositivity in peritoneal dialysis patients. Our results suggest that TTV infection is not associated with evident liver diseases, and there is no difference between TTV infection in healthy individuals and peritoneal dialysis patients. TTV transmission probably occurs via routes unrelated to peritoneal dialysis.