Searching for Common Mammalian Retroviruses in Pediatric Idiopathic Diseases

Eric Jeziorski (1, 2) , Vincent Foulongne (2, 3) , Catherine Ludwig (2) , Djamel Louhaem (2) , Michel Rodière (2) , Marc Sitbon (1) , Valérie Courgnaud (1)

1 IGMM - Institut de Génétique Moléculaire de Montpellier
2 CHRU Montpellier - Centre Hospitalier Régional Universitaire [Montpellier]
3 Pathogénèse et contrôle des infections chroniques (PCCI)

Mammalian retroviruses cause a variety of diseases in their hosts, including hematological and immunodeficiency disorders. Both human T-cell leukemia (HTLV) and human immunodeficiency (HIV) viruses originated from several independent zoonotic transmissions, indicating that cross-species transmissions from animal to humans may still occur. Thus, as the risk for retroviral transmissions from animals to humans increase, we investigated whether mammalian retroviruses are involved in selected pediatric idiopathic diseases whose symptoms evoke retroviral infections. Blood samples, sera, and synovial fluids, or bone marrow cells were collected from pediatric patients under 18 years of age with different autoimmune idiopathic diseases. Overall, we screened clinical samples from 110 children using sensitive nested and semi-nested PCR strategies targeting env genes, and a C-type retrovirus reverse transcriptase (RT) activity kit. All clinical samples were free of retroviral signatures, indicating the unlikelihood of an etiological role of the retroviruses we assessed in the pediatric diseases we tested.

Mots clés: autoimmune idiopathic disease; emergent viruses; env gene; pediatric patients; polymerase chain reaction; retroviruses

Domaines: Médecine humaine et pathologie

Eric Jeziorski, Vincent Foulongne, Catherine Ludwig, Djamel Louhaem, Michel Rodière, et al.. Searching for Common Mammalian Retroviruses in Pediatric Idiopathic Diseases. Viruses, 2016, 8 (3), pp.86. ⟨10.3390/v8030086⟩. ⟨hal-01989249⟩