ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi's sarcoma associated herpesvirus (KSHV) are consistently associated with lymphoproliferative diseases and cancers in humans, notably in patients with HIV. AIMS: Our aim was to evaluate whether EBV and/or KSHV viral loads regularly assessed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) correlate with clinical or laboratorial parameters retrieved for patients living with HIV. METHODS: This was a longitudinal study with a cohort of 157 HIV positive patients attending an academic HIV outpatient clinic in São Paulo State, Brazil. For each patient, up to four blood samples were collected over a 1 year clinical follow-up: on enrolment into the study, and after 4, 8 and 12â months. Total DNA was extracted from PBMC, and EBV and KSHV viral loads were assessed by real time quantitative PCR. RESULTS: Higher viral loads for EBV were significantly associated with high HIV viraemia, a greater number of circulating T CD8+ cells and lack of virological response to the antiretroviral treatment. KSHV viral load was undetectable in virtually all samples. CONCLUSIONS: EBV viral load in PBMC correlated with the number of circulating T CD8+ lymphocytes and the response to the antiretroviral therapy in HIV infected patients. In contrast, KSHV was undetectable in PBMC, presumably an effect of the antiretroviral treatment. Therefore, either KSHV infection in the population studied was absent or viral load in PBMC was beyond the analytical limit of the assay.
Subject(s)
Coinfection , HIV Infections/complications , HIV Infections/virology , Herpesviridae Infections/complications , Herpesviridae Infections/virology , Viremia/complications , Adolescent , Adult , Aged , Cohort Studies , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay , Female , Herpesvirus 4, Human , Herpesvirus 8, Human , Humans , Longitudinal Studies , Male , Middle Aged , Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction , Young AdultABSTRACT
The present study aimed to evaluate the frequency of KSHV genotypes isolated from Kaposi sarcoma (KS) lesions in patients from Brazil. Fifty KS cases were evaluated. The most frequently detected viral genotypes were A (50.0%) and C (48.0%); the B genotype was isolated only in one case (2.0%). Noteworthy, there was a significant predominance of A genotypes in KS lesions from HIV-positive patients, whereas C genotypes were found mostly in the HIV-negative setting. This finding supports the hypothesis that distinct KSHV genotypes have a non-random distribution in KS, which might be attributable to unique biological properties.
