JC virus infects the enteric glia of patients with chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction

Abstract

Background and aim-Chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction (CIIP) is characterised by severe impairment of intestinal propulsive motility that mimics bowel obstruction. JC virus (JCV) is a polyomavirus that can infect brain glial cells causing a fatal disease, but may also be found throughout the normal gastrointestinal tract. The hypothesis that JCV infects the myenteric plexuses of patients with CIIP was tested.

Accumulation of Specific Epigenetic Abnormalities During Development and Progression of T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma

“…EBV is associated with Burkitt's lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), NK/T lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and Hodgkin's disease (Lindstrom et al, 2002;Kwong et al, 2002;Bravender, 2010). HTLV-1 is associated with adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATLL) (Poiesz et al 1980;Hinuma et al, 1981;Yoshida et al, 1982), HTLV-2 with hairy cell leukemia (Feuer et al, 2005;Kaplan, 1993;Hielle, 1991), HHV-8 with Kaposi's sarcoma and primary effusion lymphomas Du, 2007), HBV and HCV with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) (Miroux et al, 2010;Alavian et al, 2010), HPV with cervical carcinoma (Tota et al, 2010;Grce et al, 2010) and JCV with brain and colon cancer (Parkin, 2006;Selgrad et al,2009). The bacterium Helicobacter pylori, a major contributor to gastric cancer and MALT lymphoma, and parasitic infections such as particular Schistosoma hematobium, a major cause of bladder cancer in Egypt, and liver flukes (Zur Hausen, 2009) www.intechopen.com Accumulation of Specific Epigenetic Abnormalities During Development and Progression of T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma 147 are also associated with human cancers.…”

“…The pathogenesis of HTLV-1 has been intensively investigated in terms of the viral regulatory proteins HTLV-1 Tax and Rex, which are supposed to play key roles in the HTLV-1 leukemogenesis/lymphomagenesis, as well as the HTLV-1 basic leucine zipper factor 148 (HBZ) (Matsuoka et al, 2003(Matsuoka et al, , 2007Gaudray et al2002). The mechanism responsible for the progression of ATLL have been investigated from various genetic aspects, including specific chromosome abnormalities (Okamoto et al, 1989;Oka et al1992Oka et al , 2006Ariyama et al1999;Fujimoto et al, 1999), changes in the characteristic HTLV-1 Tax, Rex and HBZ protein expression patterns (Oka et al, 1992;Selgrad et al, 2009) and aberrant expression of the SHP1 (Oka et al, 2002, P53 (Yamato et al, 1993;Tawara et al, 2006), DRS (Shimakage et al 2007), and ASY/Nogo (Shimakage et al 2006) genes, although the detailed mechanisms triggering the onset and progression of ATLL remains to be elucidated. Frequent epigenetic aberration of DNA hypermethylation associated with SHP1 gene silencing has been identified in a wide range of hematopoietic malignancies (Oka et al, 2001(Oka et al, , 2002Koyama et al, 2003).…”

The enteric nervous system: another forgotten autonomic target in viral infections?

“…There is a growing body of evidence, based on case series and case reports, showing that herpes family virus [varicella zoster virus (VZV), cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)] and JC virus infections may be associated with some cases of chronic intestinal idiopathic pseudo-obstruction (CIIPO) [5]. CIIPO is a chronic and progressive condition characterised by severe impairment of gastrointestinal motility.…”

“…It is believed that viral infections, among other causes, including metabolic and paraneoplastic syndromes, can affect the neuromuscular layer of the gut and cause this syndrome. Cases of VZV infection associated to acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (Ogilvie's syndrome), severe abdominal pain preceding fatal varicella, autonomic dysfunction and intestinal pseudobstruction symptoms following glandular fever secondary to EBV infection have been published [5]. VZV has also been reported to infect and establish latency in ganglia of the enteric nervous system [6].…”

“…VZV has also been reported to infect and establish latency in ganglia of the enteric nervous system [6]. Myenteric ganglionitis characterised by inflammatory infiltrates within the myenteric plexuses has been described in EBV infection, and EBV, cytomegalovirus and VZV viral inclusions have been found in the myenteric plexus [5]. JC virus has also been shown to actively infect the enteric glia of the myoenteric plexus in some patients with CIIPO.…”