Bofill-Mas Sílvia, Girones Rosina
Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
J Neurovirol. 2003;9 Suppl 1:54-8. doi: 10.1080/13550280390195306.
JC virus is etiologically associated with a fatal demyelinating disease known as PML. JCV produces persistent infections in the kidney and is excreted in the urine of healthy individuals and in the urine of PML patients. The characteristics of the JCV excreted in the environment have been studied by analyzing sewage samples from divergent geographical areas. The intergenic region of JCV strains detected in the sewage of Barcelona (Spain), Umeå (Sweden), Nancy (France), Pretoria (South Africa), Patras (Greece), Cairo (Egypt), Washington, D.C. (USA), and diverse areas of Northern India has been sequenced, and the phylogenetic analysis showed their relationships with JCV strains previously described in urine or clinical samples in these geographic areas. The JCV regulatory region of the JCV DNA detected in sewage presented archetypal or archetypal-like regulatory regions with the exception of one of the twenty clones obtained from a sewage sample of the area of Washington, D.C. that presented a tandem repeated structure. Infectivity studies showed that archetypal JCV present in the urine of a pregnant woman productively infected SVG cells. Also JC viral particles showed considerable stability in sewage at 20 degrees C and in front of treatments with acidic pH and trypsin. The high prevalence of JCV in urine and in sewage and the stability of the viral particles observed suggests that contaminated water, food, and fomites could be the vehicles of JCV transmission through the oral route. Virions partially degraded or noninfectious could be a source of JCV DNA and may represent an additional mechanism of entry of viral genes into cells.
JC病毒在病因学上与一种名为进行性多灶性白质脑病（PML）的致命脱髓鞘疾病相关。JC病毒在肾脏中产生持续性感染，并在健康个体的尿液以及PML患者的尿液中排泄。通过分析来自不同地理区域的污水样本，对环境中排泄的JC病毒的特征进行了研究。已对在西班牙巴塞罗那、瑞典于默奥、法国南锡、南非比勒陀利亚、希腊帕特雷、埃及开罗、美国华盛顿特区以及印度北部不同地区的污水中检测到的JC病毒株的基因间隔区进行了测序，系统发育分析显示了它们与这些地理区域先前在尿液或临床样本中描述的JC病毒株的关系。在污水中检测到的JC病毒DNA的JC病毒调控区呈现出原型或类似原型的调控区，但从华盛顿特区地区的一个污水样本中获得的20个克隆中的一个呈现出串联重复结构除外。感染性研究表明，一名孕妇尿液中存在的原型JC病毒可有效感染SVG细胞。此外，JC病毒颗粒在20摄氏度的污水中以及在酸性pH和胰蛋白酶处理下表现出相当的稳定性。JC病毒在尿液和污水中的高流行率以及观察到的病毒颗粒的稳定性表明，受污染的水、食物和污染物可能是JC病毒通过口服途径传播的载体。部分降解或无感染性的病毒粒子可能是JC病毒DNA的来源，并且可能代表病毒基因进入细胞的另一种机制。
