Cellular reservoirs of latent cytomegaloviruses

AbstractCytomegaloviruses (CMVs), members of the β-subfamily of the herpesvirus family, have co-speciated with their respective mammalian hosts resulting in a mutual virus–host adaptation reflected by sets of ‘private’ viral genes that a particular CMV species does not share with other CMVs and that define the host-species specificity of CM Vs. Nonetheless, based on “biological convergence” in evolution, fundamental rules in viral pathogenesis and immune control are functionally analogous between different virus–host pairs. Therefore, the mouse model of infection with murine CMV (mCMV) has revealed generally valid principles of C MV–host interactions. Specifically, the mouse model has paved the way to cellular immunotherapy of CMV disease in immunocompromised recipients of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Precisely in the context of HCT, however, current view assumes that there exists a major difference between hC MV and mCMV regarding “latent virus reservoirs” in that only hCMV establishes latency in hematopoietic lineage cells (HLCs), whereas mCMV establishes latency in endothelial cells. This would imply that only hCMV can reactivate from transplanted HLCs of a latently infected donor. In addition, as viral transcriptional activity during latency is discussed as a driver of clonal T-cell expansion over lifetime, a phenomenon known as “memory inflation”, it is important to know if hCMV and mCMV establish latency in the same cell type(s) for i...
Source: Medical Microbiology and Immunology - Category: Microbiology Source Type: research