Department of Virology, Unit of Epidemiology and Physiopathology of Oncogenic Viruses, Institut Pasteur, Paris, France ; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut Pasteur, Paris, France ; Paris Diderot University, Cellule Pasteur, Paris, France.
PLoS One. 2013 Oct 8;8(10):e77072. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0077072. eCollection 2013.
Simian foamy viruses (SFV) are widespread retroviruses among non-human primates (NHP). SFV actively replicate in the oral cavity and can be transmitted to humans through NHP bites, giving rise to a persistent infection. We aimed at studying the natural history of SFV infection in human. We have analyzed viral load and gene expression in 14 hunters from Cameroon previously shown to be infected with a gorilla SFV strain. Viral DNA could be detected by quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) targeting the pol-in region, in most samples of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) (7.1 ± 6.0 SFV DNA copies/105 PBMCs) and saliva (2.4 ± 4.3 SFV DNA copies/105 cells) derived from the hunters. However, quantitative real-time reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT)-qPCR revealed the absence of SFV viral gene expression in both PBMCs and saliva, suggesting that SFV was latent in the human samples. Our study demonstrates that a latent infection can occur in humans and persist for years, both in PBMCs and saliva. Such a scenario may contribute to the putative lack of secondary human-to-human transmissions of SFV.
猿猴泡沫病毒（SFV）是广泛存在于非人类灵长类动物（NHP）中的逆转录病毒。SFV 在口腔中积极复制，并可通过 NHP 咬伤传播给人类，引起持续感染。我们旨在研究 SFV 感染在人类中的自然史。我们分析了先前被证明感染了大猩猩 SFV 株的 14 名喀麦隆猎人的病毒载量和基因表达。通过针对 pol-in 区域的定量聚合酶链反应（q-PCR），可以在大多数猎人的外周血单核细胞（PBMC）（7.1 ± 6.0 SFV DNA 拷贝/105 PBMC）和唾液（2.4 ± 4.3 SFV DNA 拷贝/105 个细胞）样本中检测到病毒 DNA。然而，定量实时逆转录聚合酶链反应（RT）-qPCR 显示 PBMC 和唾液中均不存在 SFV 病毒基因表达，表明 SFV 在人类样本中潜伏。我们的研究表明，潜伏感染可在人类中发生并持续多年，既存在于 PBMC 中也存在于唾液中。这种情况可能导致 SFV 假定的缺乏人与人之间的二次传播。
