Columbia University, New York, New York 10032, USA.
Emerg Infect Dis. 2010 Jun;16(6):918-25. doi: 10.3201/eid1606.091536.
Encephalitis is a major cause of death worldwide. Although >100 pathogens have been identified as causative agents, the pathogen is not determined for up to 75% of cases. This diagnostic failure impedes effective treatment and underscores the need for better tools and new approaches for detecting novel pathogens or determining new manifestations of known pathogens. Although astroviruses are commonly associated with gastroenteritis, they have not been associated with central nervous system disease. Using unbiased pyrosequencing, we detected an astrovirus as the causative agent for encephalitis in a 15-year-old boy with agammaglobulinemia; several laboratories had failed to identify the agent. Our findings expand the spectrum of causative agents associated with encephalitis and highlight unbiased molecular technology as a valuable tool for differential diagnosis of unexplained disease.
脑炎是全球范围内的主要死亡原因之一。尽管已经确定了 >100 种病原体是致病因子，但仍有高达 75%的病例无法确定病原体。这种诊断失败阻碍了有效的治疗，并凸显了对更好的工具和新方法的需求，以便检测新的病原体或确定已知病原体的新表现形式。尽管星状病毒通常与胃肠炎有关，但它们与中枢神经系统疾病无关。使用无偏倚的焦磷酸测序，我们在一名患有丙种球蛋白缺乏症的 15 岁男孩的脑炎中检测到一种星状病毒是致病因子；有几个实验室未能确定该病原体。我们的发现扩大了与脑炎相关的病原体范围，并强调了无偏倚的分子技术是诊断不明原因疾病的一种有价值的工具。
