Human RNA “Rumor” Viruses: the Search for Novel Human Retroviruses in Chronic Disease

[Overstressed]

ABSTRACT
Summary: Retroviruses are an important group of pathogens that cause a variety of diseases in humans and animals. Four human retroviruses are currently known, including human immunodeficiency virus type 1, which causes AIDS, and human T-lymphotropic virus type 1, which causes cancer and inflammatory disease. For many years, there have been sporadic reports of additional human retroviral infections, particularly in cancer and other chronic diseases. Unfortunately, many of these putative viruses remain unproven and controversial, and some retrovirologists have dismissed them as merely “human rumor viruses.” Work in this field was last reviewed in depth in 1984, and since then, the molecular techniques available for identifying and characterizing retroviruses have improved enormously in sensitivity. The advent of PCR in particular has dramatically enhanced our ability to detect novel viral sequences in human tissues. However, DNA amplification techniques have also increased the potential for false-positive detection due to contamination. In addition, the presence of many families of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) within our DNA can obstruct attempts to identify and validate novel human retroviruses. Here, we aim to bring together the data on “novel” retroviral infections in humans by critically examining the evidence for those putative viruses that have been linked with disease and the likelihood that they represent genuine human infections. We provide a background to the field and a discussion of potential confounding factors along with some technical guidelines. In addition, some of the difficulties associated with obtaining formal proof of causation for common or ubiquitous agents such as HERVs are discussed.

Read the (long) article here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2268285/

Best regards,
OS.

 

[Sushi]

Overstressed

Interesting, but this is 2008. Wonder if there is newer work.

Sushi

 

[Overstressed]

Overstressed

Interesting, but this is 2008. Wonder if there is newer work.

Sushi

Hi Sushi,

I had seen it was from 2008, but didn't see any actual work that gives such a comprehensive overview of these viruses and its (possible)associations with chronic diseases. I think the authors did a fine study, without any prejudice. If you, for example, read what they say about the findings of XMRV, contamination doesn't explain everything.

Once you read all this, I'm convinced -more than ever- that retroviruses are more distributed among humans than we might think. Which then opens the discussion in which way people got infected on such a large scale. I still think that -seen the nature of retroviruses in general, i.e. not easily transferred- there have to be transfer vectors for these viruses, which allow them to infect the host easily. Such vectors might be parasites, which are infected by retroviruses themselves.

And if I may speculate a bit more, it might also explain why some people might get infected quite easily, and transfer the infection to others, also easily. The reason why some of the population is not infected easily, is possibly because after an infection people might have ran a course on antibiotics, which might remove the transfer vector of the retrovirus. And without a transfer vector, you'll have a retrovirus which is not transferred easily.

Edit: Something I also forgot to mention: it's interesting what they say about some viruses, i.e. where the host doesn't mount(or hardly) an antibody response.

Best wishes,
OS.