Human herpesvirus type 7 in Hodgkin's disease

Abstract

Summary. Several lines of evidence have pointed to the involvement of a viral agent in the pathogenesis of Hodgkin's disease (HD). Therefore we investigated the presence of human herpesvirus type 7 (HHV-7) in 53 cases of HD by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), DNA in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunohistochemistry. HHV-7 DNA was frequently detected (68% of the cases) in HD biopsies by PCR independently of the histological type, whereas only 32% (P < 0·05) of positive cases were found in 19 reactive lymph nodes. However, by applying the quantitative PCR technique, the majority of the samples showed a low level of viral load.Moreover, ISH for HHV-7 DNA was positive in a low number of small T lymphocytes and consistently negative in Hodgkin and Reed-Sternberg (HRS) cells, which appeared negative for HHV-7 also at immunohistochemistry.These results indicate that the high frequency of HHV-7 infection in HD: (i) is probably non-productive, (ii) mainly involves small lymphocytes belonging to the T-lineage, and (iii) is probably due to the recruitment of non-malignant reactive cells in HD tissue.

Absence of a directly causative role for human herpesvirus 7 in human lymphoma and a review of human herpesvirus 6 in human malignancy

“…The negative findings of the present report are in agreement with a recent publication [58] in which no relationship was found between HD, NHL, and HHV-7. Although a higher proportion of HHV-7 PCR positivity was found in HD and NHL than in reactive lymph nodes, quantitative PCR showed a low level of viral load and no significant difference between lymphoma and control samples.…”

Down‐Regulation of Human Leukocyte Antigen Class I and II and β2‐Microglobulin Expression in Human Herpesvirus‐7–Infected Cells

“…In this perspective might be seen, for instance, the persistence of HHV-7 replication in macrophages infiltrating Kaposi sarcoma and lymph nodes of patients with AIDS [20,36], as well as the ability of HHV-7 to perturb cell proliferation, affecting cyclin levels and promoting endomitosis in lymphocytes and myeloid progenitor [23,28,39,44]. HHV-7-infected cells would act, in other words, as a "Trojan horse" for the progression and development of more serious disease.…”

“…sarcoma [20]; and Hodgkin, non-Hodgkin, cutaneous, and mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphomas [21][22][23]. Whether HHV-7 might play a pathogenetic role in these diseases is still debated [7,[24][25][26][27][28][29].…”

Immune Reactivity of Human Sera to the Glycoprotein B of Human Herpesvirus 7

“…The natural history of HHV-7 infection in the human host is not well known. Primary infection has not yet been consistently associated with a given disease, and the potential association of HHV-7 reactivation with diseases in adults remains to be confirmed (11,22,32,33,40,43,45).These pending questions point out the need for relevant diagnostic tools targeted to HHV-7 infection. So far, the serological diagnosis of HHV-7 infection has raised concerns about its specificity (3, 14, 38) because HHV-7 has marked homologies with the two other human betaherpesviruses, HHV-6 and, to a lesser extent, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV).…”

“…The natural history of HHV-7 infection in the human host is not well known. Primary infection has not yet been consistently associated with a given disease, and the potential association of HHV-7 reactivation with diseases in adults remains to be confirmed (11,22,32,33,40,43,45).…”