Laboratory of Microbiology and Virology, Department of Molecular Medicine, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
PhD National Programme in One Health Approaches to Infectious Diseases and Life Science Research, Department of Public Health, Experimental and Forensic Medicine, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy.
J Med Virol. 2024 Jul;96(7):e29814. doi: 10.1002/jmv.29814.
Novel biomarkers reflecting the degree of immunosuppression in transplant patients are required to ensure eventual personalized equilibrium between rejection and infection risks. With the above aim, Torque Teno Virus (TTV) viremia was precisely examined in a large cohort of transplanted immunocompromised patients (192 hematological and 60 solid organ transplant recipients) being monitored for Cytomegalovirus reactivation. TTV load was measured in 2612 plasma samples from 448 patients. The results revealed a significant increase in TTV viral load approximately 14 days following CMV reactivation/infection in solid organ transplant (SOT) patients. No recognizable difference in TTV load was noted among hematological patients during the entire timeframe analyzed. Furthermore, a temporal gap of approximately 30 days was noted between the viral load peaks reached by the two viruses, with Cytomegalovirus (CMV) preceding TTV. It was not possible to establish a correlation between CMV reactivation/infection and TTV viremia in hematological patients. On the other hand, the SOT patient cohort allowed us to analyze viral kinetics and draw intriguing conclusions. Taken together, the data suggest, to our knowledge for the first time, that CMV infection itself could potentially cause an increase in TTV load in the peripheral blood of patients undergoing immunosuppressive therapy.
需要新型的免疫抑制标志物来反映移植患者的免疫抑制程度，以确保最终在排斥和感染风险之间实现个体化平衡。为此，我们在接受巨细胞病毒（CMV）再激活监测的大量免疫抑制移植患者（192 例血液系统和 60 例实体器官移植受者）中，精确地检查了扭转型病毒（TTV）血症。我们在 448 例患者的 2612 份血浆样本中测量了 TTV 载量。结果显示，在实体器官移植（SOT）患者 CMV 再激活/感染后约 14 天，TTV 病毒载量显著增加。在整个分析时间段内，血液系统患者的 TTV 载量没有明显差异。此外，两种病毒的病毒载量峰值之间存在约 30 天的时间间隔，CMV 先于 TTV。我们未能在血液系统患者中建立 CMV 再激活/感染与 TTV 血症之间的相关性。另一方面，SOT 患者队列使我们能够分析病毒动力学并得出有趣的结论。综上所述，这些数据首次表明，CMV 感染本身可能导致接受免疫抑制治疗的患者外周血中的 TTV 载量增加，这在我们的认知中尚属首次。
