Progression of retinal choroidal neovascularization by latent human cytomegalovirus infection and immunological signaling among neonatal patients admitted to tertiary care hospital.

Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is a serious condition that affects the retina, causing partial or complete blindness in people of different ages. While CNV is a common occurrence in various chorioretinopathies, research on its occurrence in neonates is limited. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a significant health threat to neonates, with a strong association with retinal angiogenesis. However, there has been limited investigation into HCMV-associated CNV progression. In this article, we extensively studied the expression of different inflammatory cytokines and chemokines during latent HCMV-associated retinal neovascularization. Our research found that HCMV-induced CNV progression was significantly prominent in the presence of AT2R-dependent angiogenesis (p < 0.001), whereas in the absence of HCMV, AT1R-dependent CCL-5-mediated angiogenesis was documented. We also observed significant increases in CCL-19, CCL-21 chemokine responses, followed by CCR-7 chemokine receptor activation (p < 0.001) in HCMV-induced CNV patients compared to HCMV non-induced CNV groups. Furthermore, significant changes in predictive chemokine markers of HCMV-induced CNV were positively correlated with HCMV viremia. These immunological alterations ultimately lead to the switching of NFκB canonical and noncanonical pathways, respectively, in HCMV-induced neonatal CNV and HCMV non-induced CNV. This clinical observation presents a novel hypothesis that ocular HCMV latency poses a noteworthy risk factor for the progression of retinal neovascularization through a distinctive immunological signaling pathway. The current study represents the first of its kind to report on this association, which may have significant implications for the clinical management of patients with ocular HCMV.

A cross-sectional study exploring disease characteristics and phylogenetic nature of human cytomegalovirus among infected neonates with congenital nephrotic syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Congenital nephrotic syndrome (CNS) is a rare but serious condition which affects neonates and is caused by monogenic defects of glomerular structural proteins or congenital viral infections. Several reports have established a causal relationship between human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) intrauterine infection and CNS, but thorough study assessing parameters has not yet been done. METHODS: This study aimed to ascertain significant demographic, biochemical, serological, inflammatory and etiological parameters with 12 months follow-up to clinically identify and monitor neonates with HCMV-associated CNS and sought to decipher the phylogenetic nature of infecting strains. Differences between four patient groups (neonates < 4 weeks old) with or without CNS and HCMV infection were compared by unpaired t testing and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Linear regression was performed to assess statistical significance among individual groups. Maximum-likelihood-based phylogenetic analysis was performed with HCMV gH gene sequences to compare clinically isolated and referenced NCBI strains. This was further supported by analysis of effective number of codons (ENc), codon adaptation index (CAI) and mRNA structural variation. RESULTS: Patients with HCMV-associated CNS were found to have significant variations in many studied parameters compared with controls. The majority of clinical strains formed a separate phylogenetic cluster defining them as somewhat distinct from standard reference strains, which was supported by the other analyses. CONCLUSION: This study defined parameters for monitoring cases of HCMV-associated CNS, which suggest the possible existence of a selection force acting and rendering these HCMV strains able to infect selective host tissues and cause specific disease types.

Detection and differentiation of antinuclear antibodies in serum of dengue suspected patients with or without systemic autoimmune disease in Kolkata, India.

The pathophysiology of dengue may be influenced by antibodies released during infection. Several autoimmune diseases are accompanied by antinuclear antibodies (ANAs) but 8-10% of the general population have positive ANA tests. To test the hypothesis that an ANA-positive test indicates an immune dysregulated state that modifies the risk for certain clinical disorders in people with or without an autoimmune disease, we examined the various ANA profiles and their relationships to various autoimmune disorders, as well as the severity of these relationships, in patients infected with dengue fever. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) methods were used. Indirect immunofluorescence assay (IIFA) and line immunoassay (LIA) were performed to detect and differentiate the ANAs among dengue infected patients. Out of 135 dengue virus-positive patients, 94.07% were positive by ELISA and 5.93% positive by RT-PCR method. ANAs by IIFA and LIA were detected in 54.8% and 18.5% of the dengue positive patients, respectively, and 10.3% and 7.1% of the 126 dengue negative patients, respectively. This study showed that dengue was associated with an increased risk of autoimmune myositis and mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), a rare complication of dengue. The risk of other autoimmune diseases did not seem to increase after DENV infection.

A Decade-Long Cohort Analysis of Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV)-Induced Early and Late Renal Rejection in Post-Transplant Patients in the Eastern Indian Population.

Background: HCMV causes severe clinical complications in transplant recipients and may lead to graft rejection. Successful renal transplantation heavily relies on the early prevention and diagnosis of CMV infections, followed by prompt prophylactic treatment before transplantation. Despite the majority of renal rejection cases with acute HCMV infections being asymptomatic and occurring one to two years later, the objective of this research was to comprehend the effect of late HCMV infection on renal rejection by examining specific clinical parameters in the Eastern Indian cohort. Method: In this study, 240 patients were studied for five years following transplantation, and their data were collected from the local metropolitan hospital in Eastern India. Both HCMV-positive and -negative post-transplant patients were investigated using the clinical parameters and viral loads for latent infection. Results: Within the studied population, 79 post-transplant patients were found to be HCMV positive. Among them, 13 (16.45%) patients suffered from renal rejection within less than 2 yrs. of transplantation (early rejection) and 22 (27.84%) patients suffered from renal rejection after 2 yrs. from the operation date (late rejection). Assessment of clinical parameters with respect to HCMV infection revealed that in early rejection cases, fever (p-0.035) and urinary tract infection (p-0.017) were prominent, but in late rejection, hematuria (p-0.032), diabetes (p-0.005), and creatinine level changes (p < 0.001) were significant along with urinary tract infection (p-0.047). Conclusions: This study provides valuable insights into monitoring latent CMV infections and highlights the understanding of reducing renal rejection rates and the need for further research in this field.

A comparative analysis depicting the disease characteristics and phylogenetic signature of human cytomegalovirus infection in Human Immunodeficiency Virus 1 seropositive patients with end-organ retinitis and gastro-enteric diseases.

During advanced HIV infection, Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) has been proven to produce devitalizing end-organ diseases (EOD). The interactive co-existence of HIV and HCMV has been reported by many researchers and has been suggested to be linked with a more aggressive disease state. This study has been designed to bring forward an assessment of the clinical risk factors capable of defining the conditions of HCMV induced retinitis and gastro-enteric diseases among HIV1 seropositive patients. We also intended to analyse the phylogenetic variation if any, among the infecting virus types inducing the two separate clinical conditions. The patients were arranged in three different groups; (Group 1 with 26 individuals and group 2 and group 3 with 25 individuals each) based on their current status of HIV and HCMV infections. Serum ELISA, qualitative and quantitative detection of HCMV DNA, Real time mRNA expression study, sequencing, and phylogenetic analysis were performed. All statistical analyses and graphs were exercised using relevant software. We found that in HIV patients with HCMV induced end-organ diseases the components of the CXCL9, 10, 11-CXCR3 chemokine pathway is highly expressed with significant differences existing among patients with retinitis and gastrointestinal disease. We found that the gL gene sequences from the retinitis (HR) group clustered almost separately from that of the gastroenteritis (HG) group in the phylogenetic tree. It may be suggested that a form of natural selection pressure is working on the clinical HCMV strains creating a slight divergence in their phylogenetic lineage thereby helping them adapt to the particular tissue microenvironment they are colonizing.

Chitosan/benzyloxy-benzaldehyde modified ZnO nano template having optimized and distinct antiviral potency to human cytomegalovirus.

Utilization of biomolecules encapsulated nano particles is currently originating ample attention to generate unconventional nanomedicines in antiviral research. Zinc oxide nanoparticle has been extensively studied for antimicrobial, antifungal and antifouling properties due to high surface to volume ratios and distinctive chemical as well as physical properties. Nevertheless, still minute information is available on their response on viruses. Here, in situ nanostructured and polysaccharide encapsulated ZnO NPs are fabricated with having antiviral potency and low cytotoxicity (%viability ~ 90%) by simply controlling the formation within interspatial 3D networks of hydrogels through perfect locking mechanism. The two composites ChH@ZnO and ChB@ZnO shows exceedingly effective antiviral activity toward Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) having cell viability 93.6% and 92.4% up to 400 µg mL-1 concentration. This study brings significant insights regarding the role of ZnO NPs surface coatings on their nanotoxicity and antiviral action and could potentially guide to the development of better antiviral drug.

Insight into the distinctive paradigm of Human Cytomegalovirus associated intrahepatic and extrahepatic cholestasis in neonates.

Human Cytomegalovirus has been implicated as a probable cause for the development of hepatic cholestasis among neonates. Our study tried to ascertain the exact demographic, biochemical and immunological markers to differentially diagnose patients with HCMV associated intrahepatic and extrahepatic cholestasis and also decipher the phylogenetic variability among the viral strains infecting the two groups. A total of 110 neonates collected over a span of 2 years were selected for the study classified into four different groups based on the presence of hepatic cholestasis and active HCMV infection. Our analysis predicted that total Cholesterol, GGT, ALP and TNFα were the only significant biological markers with exact cut-off scores, capable of distinguishing between HCMV associated intrahepatic and extrahepatic cholestasis. We confirmed that in patients belonging to both of these groups, the inflammasome is activated and the extent of this activation is more or less same except for the initial activators NLRP3 and AIM2 respectively. When we performed two separate phylogenetic analyses with HCMV gM and gN gene sequences, we found that in both cases the sequences from the IHC and EHC groups formed almost separate phylogenetic clusters. Our study has shown that the HCMV clinical strains infecting at intrahepatic and extrahepatic sites are phylogenetically segregated as distinct clusters. These two separate groups show different physiological as well as immunological modulations while infecting a similar host.