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Viral Infections

Human herpesvirus 6 infection and cytomegalovirus-specific lymphoproliferative responses in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients

Bone Marrow Transplantation volume 30, pages 521–526 (2002)Cite this article

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of HHV-6 DNAemia on the CMV specific lymphoproliferative response after allogeneic stem cell transplantation. Twenty-one allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT) patients were included in the study. The patients were either CMV seropositive and/or had CMV seropositive donors. We studied the effects of HHV-6 infection, documented by PCR, on CMV-specific lymphocyte proliferation response and on CMV infection documented by PCR. HHV-6 DNAemia correlated with the absence of CMV-specific lymphocyte proliferation responses after allo-SCT. Three of nine patients with persistent HHV-6 DNA had a CMV-specific lymphocyte proliferative response compared to 11 of 12 patients without persistent HHV-6 DNAemia (P = 0.02). Patients with higher HHV-6 DNA levels (>100 copies) were more likely than those with lower copy numbers not to develop a CMV-specific immune response (six of nine vs one of eight; P < 0.05). Patients who were repeatedly HHV-6 positive in three or more consecutive blood samples were also more likely to need repeated courses of preemptive antiviral therapy against CMV during the first 6 months after transplantation (P < 0.001). Our data indicate the possibility that HHV-6 can suppress the development of CMV-specific immune responses and thereby could predispose to development of late CMV disease.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Swedish Children's Cancer Fund and the Swedish Cancer Society. We are grateful to Vince Emery and Duncan A Clark at Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine for help with the quantitative, competitive PCR analyses. We also thank Kirsti Niemele, RN, and Mari Svensson, RN, at Huddinge University Hospital for collecting the samples.

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Author notes

  1. F-Z Wang and K Larsson: The first two authors contributed equally to this study and share first authorship

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Hematology, Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    F-Z Wang, K Larsson & P Ljungman

  2. Department of Virology, Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control, Stockholm, Sweden

    F-Z Wang & A Linde

  3. Department of Microbiology and Tumor Biology Center (MTC), Stockholm, Sweden

    F-Z Wang & A Linde

  4. Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

    A Linde

Authors
  1. F-Z Wang
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  2. K Larsson
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  3. A Linde
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  4. P Ljungman
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Correspondence to K Larsson.

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Wang, FZ., Larsson, K., Linde, A. et al. Human herpesvirus 6 infection and cytomegalovirus-specific lymphoproliferative responses in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients. Bone Marrow Transplant 30, 521–526 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.bmt.1703657

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