Bonavita Cassandra M, Cardin Rhonda D
Department of Pathobiological Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA.
Pathogens. 2021 May 18;10(5):619. doi: 10.3390/pathogens10050619.
Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a widespread pathogen that causes lifelong latent infection and is associated with the exacerbation of chronic inflammatory diseases in seropositive individuals. Of particular impact, HCMV infection is known to worsen many cardiovascular diseases including myocarditis, atherosclerosis, hypertension, and transplant vasculopathy. Due to its similarity to HCMV, murine CMV (MCMV) is an appropriate model to understand HCMV-induced pathogenesis in the heart and vasculature. MCMV shares similar sequence homology and recapitulates much of the HCMV pathogenesis, including HCMV-induced cardiovascular diseases. This review provides insight into HCMV-associated cardiovascular diseases and the murine model of MCMV infection, which has been used to study the viral pathogenesis and mechanisms contributing to cardiovascular diseases. Our new functional studies using echocardiography demonstrate tachycardia and hypertrophy in the mouse, similar to HCMV-induced myocarditis in humans. For the first time, we show long term heart dysfunction and that MCMV reactivates from latency in the heart, which raises the intriguing idea that HCMV latency and frequent virus reactivation perturbs long term cardiovascular function.
人巨细胞病毒（HCMV）是一种广泛传播的病原体，可导致终身潜伏感染，并与血清阳性个体慢性炎症性疾病的加重有关。特别值得注意的是，已知HCMV感染会加重许多心血管疾病，包括心肌炎、动脉粥样硬化、高血压和移植血管病变。由于与HCMV相似，鼠巨细胞病毒（MCMV）是了解HCMV诱导的心脏和血管发病机制的合适模型。MCMV具有相似的序列同源性，并概括了许多HCMV发病机制，包括HCMV诱导的心血管疾病。本综述深入探讨了与HCMV相关的心血管疾病以及MCMV感染的小鼠模型，该模型已被用于研究病毒发病机制和导致心血管疾病的机制。我们使用超声心动图进行的新功能研究表明，小鼠出现心动过速和肥大，类似于人类HCMV诱导的心肌炎。我们首次展示了长期心脏功能障碍，并且MCMV从心脏潜伏状态重新激活，这提出了一个有趣的观点，即HCMV潜伏和频繁的病毒重新激活会扰乱长期心血管功能。
