title: Molecular epidemiology characterization of the urinary excretion of polyomavirus in healthy individuals from Portugal--a Southern European population.
abstract: The human polyomaviruses--BKV and JCV--are members of Polyomaviridae family and after primary infections they persist as latent infection especially in the kidneys. BKV reactivation is mainly related to urinary tract diseases and JCV reactivation can induce the disease progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. The aim of our study was to characterize the excretion of polyomaviruses in urine samples of healthy individuals from a Portuguese population. We analyzed 498 DNA samples using PCR-RFLP, the sequence amplified consisted in 176 or 173 bp within the antigen T region. Our results indicate that 23.9% of the samples were positive for JCV, 1.8% positive for BKV and 74.3% of the individuals were negative for both viruses. We observed an increased prevalence of JCV shedding in male individuals in comparison to female (P = 0.026). Furthermore, the shedding of both polyomaviruses was influenced by the age of individuals with a significant increase in individuals with more than 56 years old (P = 0.005). Our results show that the shedding of polyomavirus in urine of healthy individuals is highly variable between genders, is influenced by age and differs from region to region. Further studies are needed to evaluate the prevalence of polyomaviruses in healthy individuals, in order to understand the biological behaviour of these viruses.
authors.affiliation: Virology and Molecular Oncology Laboratory, Portuguese Institute of Oncology, Porto, Portugal. carla.rodrigues@gmail.com
authors.forename: Carla
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodrigues
authors.forename: Daniela
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Pinto
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Medeiros
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001739:BK Virus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007577:JC Virus / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017720:Molecular Epidemiology; D027601:Polyomavirus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine* / Q000821:virology; D011174:Portugal / Q000453:epidemiology; D014412:Tumor Virus Infections / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000652:urine* / Q000821:virology; D017201:Virus Shedding