Nature Medicine
2, 925 - 928 (1996)
doi:10.1038/nm0896-925
KSHV antibodies among Americans, Italians and Ugandans with and without Kaposi's sarcomaShou-Jiang Gao1, Lawrence Kingsley2, Ming Li3, Wei Zheng3, Carlo Parravicini4, John Ziegler5, Robert Newton6, Charles R. Rinaldo2, Alfred Saah7, John Phair8, Roger Detels9, Yuan Chang3
& Patrick S. Moore1, 10
1Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, P&S 14-442, 630 West 168th Street, New York, New York 10032, USA
2Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 200 Meyran Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15213 USA
3Department of Pathology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, P&S 14-442, 630 West 168th Street, New York, New York 10032, USA
4Department of Pathology, Luigi Sacco Hospital, Via G.B. Grassi 74, 20157 Milan, Italy
5International Agency for Research on Cancer, World Health Organization, 150 corns Albert Thomas, F-69372 Lyons, France
6Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Oxford University, The Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford OX2 6HE, UK
7Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, the Johns Hopkins University, 624 North Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA
8Comprehensive AIDS Center, Northwestern University Medical, North Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60611 USA
9Department of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health, 10833 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
10Correspondence should be addressed to P.S.M. A major controversy regarding Kaposi's sarcoma−associated herpesvirus (KSHV or HHV8)1,2 is whether or not it is a ubiquitous infection of humans3,4. Immunoassays based on KSHV− and Epstein−Barr virus (EBV)−coinfected cell lines show that most US AIDS−KS patients have specific antibodies to KSHV−related antigens2,5,6. We have developed a sensitive indirect immunofluorescence assay (IFA) based on an EBV−negative, KSHV−infected cell line, BCP−1. When we used this IFA assay, KSHV−related antibodies were found in 71−88% of serum samples from US, Italian and Ugandan AIDS−KS patients, as well as all serum samples examined from HIV−seronegative KS patients. Although none of the US blood donors examined were KSHV seropositive by IFA, intermediate and high seroprevalence rates were found in Italian and Ugandan control populations. Antibody kinetics showed that more than half of the AIDS−KS patients who were examined IgG−seroconverted before KS development, and antibody levels did not decline after seroconversion. For these patients, seropositivity rates increased linearly with time, suggesting that the rate of infection was constant and that the risk of developing KS once infected with KSHV is not highly dependent on the duration of infection. These data strongly suggest that KSHV is not ubiquitous in most populations and that the virus may be under strict immunologic control in healthy KSHV−infected persons.
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