Characterization of Gastrointestinal Human Cytomegalovirus Infection in Biopsy Samples from Urease Positive Patients

Abstract

Introduction: Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a ubiquitous organism that can infect multiple organs but rarely causes gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms. However, it can be reactivated in the GI tract and lead to gastric cancer. Here, we investigated CMV infection in patients with gastric complaints. Material and methods: In this study, 99 biopsy samples were collected from patients with GI symptoms and CMV genome was detected by polymerase chain reaction. Sequencing was performed for computational genotyping. Results: We observed that 88.99% of the samples were urease positive and 5.99% of the samples were CMV positive. Moreover, genotype of the samples belonged to group 4 (gB4). There was a relatively high incidence of CMV infection in patients with GI problems. Conclusions: Although symptomatic CMVassociated diseases of the GI tract are rare in immunocompetent individuals, they might be considered as potential complications of CMV infection.