Universal childhood virus is inherited in DNA

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14658-universal-childhood-virus-is-inherit\

ed-in-dna.html

 

Universal childhood virus is inherited in DNA

 

 

September 2008 by New Scientist staff and Reuters

 

A virus that causes a universal childhood infection is often passed from parent

to child at birth, not in the blood but in the DNA, according to a new study.

Researchers found that most babies infected with the HHV-6 virus, which causes

roseola, had the virus integrated into their chromosomes. Not only that, but

either the father or mother also had the virus in the chromosomes, suggesting it

was a germline transmission - passed on in egg or sperm.

" This is really a unique mechanism for congenital infections, " said Caroline

Breese Hall, a pediatrician at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New

York who led the study.

Her team is now investigating what this means for the children.

" If you have a chromosome that has got a virus integrated into it, what does it

mean? What does it do? Can it activate again? Can it start spewing out virus and

cause problems? Can you get an immune response to it? " Hall said..

Fever and rash

The questions are critical because nearly everybody is infected with HHV-6. It

is a herpes virus that causes roseola - an infection marked by high fever and

the usual vague virus symptoms that may include respiratory or stomach problems.

About 20% of children also have a characteristic sudden rash that appears just

as the fever breaks.

Hall's team studied 250 infants, 85 with HHV-6. Of them, 43 were born with the

virus and 42 were infected later.

Most of the babies born with the virus - a congenital infection - had the virus

in the chromosome. Hall said the assumption had been that the virus somehow

crossed the placenta from mother to child, but in 86% of cases, it was inherited

directly in the genetic material.

Just 14% were infected across the placenta.

Tests showed either the mother or the father - but not both - also had HHV-6 in

the chromosomes.

" Because we know a parent already had the virus in the chromosome, we know that

it didn't spontaneously wiggle its way in once the baby got it, " Hall said.

Woven into DNA

There were several spots where the virus integrated into the DNA, but usually

right at the end of the chromosome, where a key structure called the telomere is

found. Telomeres protect the chromosome and are involved in aging and immune

response.

The virus is everywhere in people who inherit it, Hall said. " In your hair, your

nails, your skin, your blood, and at very high titers (levels), " she said.

The babies infected this way did not appear ill but Hall wants to follow them as

they grow up to see if they develop normally. They all had antibodies to HHV-6,

which is evidence of an immune reaction of some sort.

There is no drug licensed to treat HHV-6 infection.

Other viruses are known to integrate into the DNA and pass on from parent to

child, but these so-called human endogenous retroviruses have never been known

to cause symptoms or activate an immune response.

 

Journal reference: Pediatrics, in press

Love, Gabby. :0)

http://stemcellforautism.blogspot.com/

 

" I know of nobody who is purely Autistic or purely neurotypical. Even God had

some Autistic moments, which is why the planets all spin. " ~ Jerry Newport