Department of Cellular and Molecular Therapy (NuCeL), Butantan Institute, São Paulo 05503-900, SP, Brazil.
Laboratory of Bioinformatics, Blood Center of Ribeirão Preto, Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Rua Tenente Catão Roxo 2501, Ribeirão Preto CEP 14051-140, SP, Brazil.
Viruses. 2022 Nov 4;14(11):2448. doi: 10.3390/v14112448.
Viral metagenomics has revolutionized our understanding for identification of unknown or poorly characterized viruses. For that reason, metagenomic studies gave been largely applied for virus discovery in a wide variety of clinical samples, including blood specimens. The emerging blood-transmitted virus infections represent important problem for public health, and the emergence of HIV in the 1980s is an example for the vulnerability of Blood Donation systems to such infections. When viral metagenomics is applied to blood samples, it can give a complete overview of the viral nucleic acid abundance, also named "blood virome". Detailed characterization of the blood virome of healthy donors could identify unknown (emerging) viral genomes that might be assumed as hypothetic transfusion threats. However, it is impossible only by application of viral metagenomics to assign that one viral agent could impact blood transfusion. That said, this is a complex issue and will depend on the ability of the infectious agent to cause clinically important infection in blood recipients, the viral stability in blood derivatives and the presence of infectious viruses in blood, making possible its transmission by transfusion. This brief review summarizes information regarding the blood donor virome and some important challenges for use of viral metagenomics in hemotherapy for identification of transfusion-transmitted viruses.
病毒宏基因组学改变了我们对未知或特征不明确病毒的认识。因此，宏基因组学研究在很大程度上应用于临床样本（包括血液样本）的病毒发现。新兴的血源病毒感染是公共卫生的重要问题，20 世纪 80 年代 HIV 的出现就是血液捐献系统容易受到此类感染的一个例子。当病毒宏基因组学应用于血液样本时，它可以全面了解病毒核酸的丰度，也称为“血液病毒组”。对健康供体的血液病毒组进行详细描述，可以识别出可能被视为假设性输血威胁的未知（新兴）病毒基因组。然而，仅通过病毒宏基因组学的应用来确定一种病毒制剂是否会影响输血是不可能的。也就是说，这是一个复杂的问题，将取决于感染因子在血液受者中引起临床重要感染的能力、血液衍生物中病毒的稳定性以及血液中是否存在传染性病毒，从而使其通过输血传播成为可能。本文简要综述了有关献血者病毒组的信息，以及病毒宏基因组学在血液治疗中用于鉴定输血传播病毒的一些重要挑战。
