Cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus subtypes—The search for clinical significance

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Elisabeth Puchhammer-Stö ; ckl and Irene Gö ; rzer
• 关键词：Cytomegalovirus ; Epstein-Barr virus ; Subtypes ; Polymorphism ; Clinical significance
• 刊名：Journal of Clinical Virology
• 出版年：2006
• 出版时间：August 2006
• 年：2006
• 卷：36
• 期：4
• 页码：239-248
• 全文大小：343 K

文摘

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) as well as Epstein Barr virus (EBV) genomes include regions which show in part substantial polymorphisms. Characterization of several polymorphic regions led to the identification of various CMV and EBV subtypes. Within the last years there have been undertaken numerous efforts to find out whether the diverse subtypes differentially contribute to clinical manifestations. However, although some associations have been described so far between a certain virus subtype and the development of individual diseases these analyses were greatly complicated by the huge genomic background of CMV and EBV, by the large variety of individual host–virus relations and by differences in the geographic or demographic subtype distribution. In addition, it was shown meanwhile that a substantial proportion of virus infections is due to mixed infections with different subtypes. In this review we will give an overview of the current knowledge concerning the clinical significance of individual CMV and EBV subtypes, defined by characterization of selected polymorphisms. In addition, we also focus on recent analyses which show that infection with mixed virus subtype populations may be disadvantageous compared to single virus subtype infections.