High prevalence of the simultaneous excretion of polyomaviruses JC and BK in the urine of HIV-infected patients without neurological symptoms in São Paulo, Brazil

• Published in: Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo
• Main Authors: Luiz Henrique da Silva Nali, Cristiane de Campos Centrone, Paulo Roberto Palma Urbano, Augusto César Penalva-de-Oliveira, Jose Ernesto Vidal, Erique Peixoto Miranda, Claudio Sérgio Pannuti, Maria Cristina Domingues da Silva Fink
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade de São Paulo (USP) 2012
• Subjects: JC virus DNA; BK virus DNA; Simultaneous excretion; HIV-infected; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Infectious and parasitic diseases; RC109-216; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0036-46652012000400004; https://doaj.org/article/b4081ae3a815454194a8cefd510e06fc

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the prevalence of the urinary excretion of BKV and JCV in HIV-infected patients without neurological symptoms. METHODS: Urine samples from HIV-infected patients without neurological symptoms were tested for JC virus and BK virus by PCR. Samples were screened for the presence of polyomavirus with sets of primers complementary to the early region of JCV and BKV genome (AgT). The presence of JC virus or BK virus were confirmed by two other PCR assays using sets of primers complementary to the VP1 gene of each virus. Analysis of the data was performed by the Kruskal-Wallis test for numerical data and Pearson or Yates for categorical variables. RESULTS: A total of 75 patients were included in the study. The overall prevalence of polyomavirus DNA urinary shedding was 67/75 (89.3%). Only BKV DNA was detected in 14/75 (18.7%) urine samples, and only JCV DNA was detected in 11/75 (14.7%) samples. Both BKV and JCV DNA were present in 42/75 (56.0%) samples. CONCLUSION: In this study we found high rates of excretion of JCV, BKV, and simultaneous excretion in HIV+ patients. Also these results differ from the others available on the literature.