Centre for Health Economics Research and Modeling Infectious Diseases, Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium; Interuniversity Institute for Biostatistics and Statistical Bioinformatics, Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium.
J Med Virol. 2014 May;86(5):812-9. doi: 10.1002/jmv.23749. Epub 2013 Sep 13.
Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) causes chickenpox after which the virus remains latent in neural ganglia. Subsequent reactivation episodes occur, leading mainly to subclinical detection of VZV, but also to the clinical entity herpes zoster. These reactivations are known to occur most frequently amongst immunocompromised individuals, but the incidence of herpes zoster is also known to increase with age, supposedly as a consequence of immunosenescence. Our analysis aims to explore associations between cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection and VZV reactivation by analyzing VZV-specific antibody titers as a function of age, gender, and CMV serostatus. The analysis was repeated on measles and parvovirus B19 antibody titers. At the time of the observations, measles virus circulation was virtually eliminated, whereas parvovirus B19 circulated at lower levels than VZV. Multiple linear regression analyses, using the log-transformed antibody titers, identified a positive association between ageing and VZV antibody titers suggesting that ageing increasingly stimulates VZV reactivation. CMV infection further amplified the positive association between ageing and the reactivation rate. A negative association between CMV infection and VZV antibody titers was found in young individuals, thereby supporting the hypothesis that CMV infection may have a negative effect on the number of B-cells. However, no associations between CMV infection and measles or parvovirus B19 antibody titers occurred, but ageing tended to be associated with a decrease in the antibody titer against parvovirus B19. The combined results thus suggest that both CMV-dependent and CMV-independent immunosenescence occurs. This is supported by an in-depth analysis of VZV, measles and parvovirus B19 antibody titers.
水痘-带状疱疹病毒（VZV）引起水痘后，病毒潜伏在神经节中。随后会出现再激活发作，主要导致 VZV 的亚临床检测，但也会导致带状疱疹的临床实体。众所周知，这些再激活在免疫功能低下的个体中最常发生，但带状疱疹的发病率也随着年龄的增长而增加，这可能是免疫衰老的结果。我们的分析旨在通过分析 VZV 特异性抗体滴度，研究巨细胞病毒（CMV）感染与 VZV 再激活之间的关联，作为年龄、性别和 CMV 血清状态的函数。我们还对麻疹和细小病毒 B19 抗体滴度进行了重复分析。在观察时，麻疹病毒的传播实际上已被消除，而细小病毒 B19 的传播水平低于 VZV。使用对数转换的抗体滴度进行多元线性回归分析，发现年龄与 VZV 抗体滴度之间存在正相关，表明年龄越来越刺激 VZV 再激活。CMV 感染进一步放大了年龄与再激活率之间的正相关。在年轻个体中发现 CMV 感染与 VZV 抗体滴度之间存在负相关，这支持了 CMV 感染可能对 B 细胞数量产生负面影响的假设。然而，CMV 感染与麻疹或细小病毒 B19 抗体滴度之间没有关联，但年龄增长与细小病毒 B19 抗体滴度下降有关。因此，综合结果表明，CMV 依赖性和 CMV 非依赖性免疫衰老都存在。这得到了对 VZV、麻疹和细小病毒 B19 抗体滴度进行深入分析的支持。
