ABSTRACT

John Cunningham virus(JCV)is a type of human polyomavirus. It was first isolated from the brain of a patient with progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy(PML)in 1971 and named after that patient. The seroprevalence of JCV in the general population is 40% to 60% . The mortality rate among patients with AIDS complicated by PML was shown to be 50% . For immunocompromised patients and pa-tients with long-term use of immunosuppressive drugs,JCV would cause fatal polyomavirus associated ne-phropathy(PVAN),viremia and some other related diseases. While the pathogenesis of JCV has well stud-ied,there are no specific prevention and treatment measures for infected individuals. Therefore,reliable, specific and sensitive JCV detection methods in clinical settings are needed. This review describes the pros and cons of different methods for JCV detection with potentials for clinical applications.