TY - JOUR T1 - Merkel cell polyomavirus DNA sequences in the buffy coats of healthy blood donors. JF - Blood Y1 - 2011 A1 - Pancaldi, Cecilia A1 - Corazzari, Valentina A1 - Maniero, Stefania A1 - Mazzoni, Elisa A1 - Comar, Manola A1 - Martini, Fernanda A1 - Tognon, Mauro KW - Adult KW - Aged KW - Base Sequence KW - Blood Buffy Coat KW - Carcinoma, Merkel Cell KW - Databases, Nucleic Acid KW - DNA, Viral KW - Expressed Sequence Tags KW - Humans KW - Italy KW - Middle Aged KW - Molecular Sequence Data KW - Polymerase Chain Reaction KW - Polyomavirus KW - Polyomavirus Infections KW - Prevalence KW - Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction KW - Sequence Alignment KW - Sequence Analysis, DNA KW - Tumor Virus Infections KW - Viral Load KW - Young Adult AB -

Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV), a DNA tumor virus, has been found to be associated with Merkel cell carcinoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. MCPyV sequences have also been detected in various normal tissues in tumor-affected patients. Immunologic studies have detected MCPyV antibodies in as many as 80% of healthy blood donors. This high seroprevalence suggests that MCPyV infection is widespread in humans. In our study, buffy coats, which were examined for MCPyV DNA Tag sequences, showed a prevalence of 22%. Viral DNA load was revealed in blood samples from 10 to 100 molecules/100 000 cells. DNA sequencing confirmed that polymerase chain reaction amplicons belong to the MCPyV strain, MKL-1. To interpret the putative role of MCPyV in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, we may infer that, during a long period of viral persistence in blood cells, this DNA tumor virus may generate mutants, which are able to participate as cofactors in the multistep process of cell transformation.

VL - 117 IS - 26 U1 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21464370?dopt=Abstract ER -