BALFOUR HH, HOLMAN CJ, GIESBRECHT JE, HOKANSON K, WHITE DR, WEBB C, SCHMELING DO, WANG DH, LELONEK M, CAVERT W; Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (43rd: 2003: Chicago, Ill.).
Abstr Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2003 Sep 14-17; 43: abstract no. V-1292.
Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN.
BACKGROUND: We developed a quantitative real-time TaqMan PCR assay for EBV and validated it clinically by studying EBV shedding in otherwise healthy persons with acute primary IM. METHODS: Participants were seen 7 times during a 6-wk period for examination and specimen collection. Aliquots of PBMCs, plasma, whole blood, and throat washings were tested in an ABI 7700 sequence detector with primers and probe optimized to amplify a 71 bp portion of the EBNA1 gene. An EBNA1 plasmid, Namalwa cells, and CRP were used to control viral and cellular DNA content of the sample. The limit of detection was 10 copies; dynamic range, 10[1]-10[7] copies; interassay variability, 0.2 log[10] copies. RESULTS: From 12/5/02 to 4/30/03, 16 University of Minnesota students 18-27 yrs old enrolled 2-9 days (median, 5 days) after onset of illness. Primary IM was confirmed by antibody testing in 10 students; the other 6 had evidence of recurrent IM or past EBV infection. The median severity score for primary IM on a scale of 0 to 6 peaked at 4 (mean, 3.6) 10 days after onset of illness, which coincided with the highest median concentration of EBV in whole blood (1.5x10[4] copies/ml) and PBMCs (4.8x10[3] copies/10[6] cells). EBV was not commonly found in the plasma; only 10/51 samples tested contained detectable virus. Viral decay in PBMCs paralleled that in whole blood and was adequately described by a first order process. The median decay halflife was 3.0 (range, 1.7-5.8) days, with r[2] values of 0.75 to 0.99. The highest concentration of EBV from all sites sampled was in the throat 6-7 weeks after onset of illness (median, 3.5x10[5] copies/ml). CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that there is relatively rapid clearance of EBV from the blood but not from the oropharynx. IM is aptly named the kissing disease because young adults appear to have the largest quantity of EBV in the throat (and inferentially are most infectious) in late convalescence when they are completely asymptomatic.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Adult
- Base Sequence
- Epstein-Barr Virus Infections
- Herpesvirus 4, Human
- Humans
- Infectious Mononucleosis
- Minnesota
- Oropharynx
- Polymerase Chain Reaction
- genetics
Other ID:
UI: 102265238
From Meeting Abstracts