Torque Teno virus DNA is found in the intracranial aneurysm wall-Is there a causative role?

OBJECTIVE

Torque Teno virus (TTV) is a recently discovered virus with high prevalence worldwide, that has been associated with vascular diseases. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of TTV molecular DNA in the intracranial aneurysm (IA) artery walls.

METHOD

Samples of IA walls were collected after microsurgical clipping from 35 patients with IA (22 ruptured/13 unruptured cases). The samples were submitted to molecular DNA extraction using the automatized extractor and performed with extraction 250. The samples underwent PCR examination with primers for β-globin as internal control using the 2000 spectrophotometer. A quantitative (real-time) PCR with TTV-specific primers was performed. Clinical and radiological data of patients included was collected.

RESULTS

TTV was detected in 15 (42.85%) cases, being 10 (45.4%) ruptured and 5 (38.4%) unruptured ( = 0.732) lesions. Multiple IAs accounted for 14 (40%) cases. Five cases (17.2%) had TTV+ and multiple aneurysms ( = 0.73). Association between presence of virus and aneurysm rupture was not statistically significant ( = 0.96).

CONCLUSION

This study demonstrated a relatively high prevalence of viral DNA in the walls of IAs. This is the first study to identify the presence of TTV DNA in IA's samples, which was found more often in ruptured lesions. This is an exploratory study, therefore, larger studies are required to clarify the relationships between inflammation, viral infection, IA formation and rupture.