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生物谷 生物研究 基础生物学进展 禽流感SARS等传染病 正文
J Infect Dis ：用病毒芯片可鉴别新病毒
研究者近日在呼吸道感染（RTIs）患者体内意外发现了新的病毒与病毒亚型。这个研究中应用的技术将有助于识别与人类疾病相关的新病毒。相关研究报告发表于《传染病杂志》9月号上。
RTI，如普通的感冒，与一些最常见的病毒感染相关，并会增加哮喘发作的危险。50%~80%的哮喘恶化都是由病毒所致的呼吸道感染引起，但是目前人们对这些病毒的了解仍然有限。
病毒芯片技术是由美国加州大学的研究人员开发的DNA微点阵或基因组芯片，这种技术的检测系统使用了所有已知的人、动物、植物及微生物中病毒的最保守序列。这项新的研究首次用这种方法研究伴或不伴有哮喘人群中的RTI相关病毒。
由Amy Kistler博士及在加州、伊利诺州和密苏里州的同事开展的这项研究，用了几种方法检测了53例哮喘和30例非哮喘成人体内处于不同健康状态的病毒。与传统的病毒培养和高敏感性聚合酶链反应（PCR）方法相比，病毒芯片在鉴别病毒病原体方面有着出色的认知度，并被证明同时具有高敏感性和特异性的。
这种方法检测出了显著的、非预期的与RTI相关病毒的差异，并确定了人鼻病毒系统树的全新分支，这也是普通感冒病毒的致病因素之一。Kistler说，这表明即使只有很少的样本，病毒芯片也可以检测出不能培养出的新型病毒。研究人员还检测出了30个已知物种的鼻病毒，研究发现，本来认为两种引起美国15%的感冒的冠状病毒，只有一种在这个研究人群中被发现。相反，两种新发现的冠状病毒株在该研究人群中占有支配地位。
这些发现对RTI和哮喘恶化中病毒差异性的作用了解不多的现状很有帮助。Kistler建议，下一步，研究团队可以继续使用病毒芯片更多地了解这些病毒。病毒检测的广度与深度非常重要，因为全面了解哮喘恶化相关的病毒病原体差异性，可以制定出针对病毒性呼吸道感染引起的哮喘恶化的个性化的治疗与预防方案。
在相关的评论中，威斯康辛州大学医学与公共卫生学院的James E. Gern和William W. Busse认为，病毒芯片对于将来检测和了解与呼吸疾病相关的新病毒是一种非常好的新方法。 （医药经济报）
原始出处:
The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2007;196:817-825
Pan-Viral Screening of Respiratory Tract Infections in Adults With and Without Asthma Reveals Unexpected Human Coronavirus and Human Rhinovirus Diversity
Amy Kistler,1 Pedro C. Avila,4 Silvi Rouskin,1 David Wang,5 Theresa Ward,2 Shigeo Yagi,3 David Schnurr,3 Don Ganem,1 Joseph L. DeRisi,1 and Homer A. Boushey2
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Microbiology, and 2Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and 3Viral and Rickettsial Disease Laboratory, California Department of Health Services, Richmond; 4Division of Allergy-Immunology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois; 5Departments of Molecular Microbiology and of Pathology and Immunology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri
(See the editorial commentary by Gern and Busse, on pages 810–1.)
Background. Between 50% and 80% of asthma exacerbations are associated with viral respiratory tract infections (RTIs), yet the influence of viral pathogen diversity on asthma outcomes is poorly understood because of the limited scope and throughput of conventional viral detection methods.
Methods. We investigated the capability of the Virochip, a DNA microarray–based viral detection platform, to characterize viral diversity in RTIs in adults with and without asthma.
Results. The Virochip detected viruses in a higher proportion of samples (65%) than did culture isolation (17%) while exhibiting high concordance (98%) with and comparable sensitivity (97%) and specificity (98%) to pathogen-specific polymerase chain reaction. A similar spectrum of viruses was identified in the RTIs of each patient subgroup; however, unexpected diversity among human coronaviruses (HCoVs) and human rhinoviruses (HRVs) was revealed. All but one of the HCoVs corresponded to the newly recognized HCoV-NL63 and HCoV-HKU1 viruses, and >20 different serotypes of HRVs were detected, including a set of 5 divergent isolates that formed a distinct genetic subgroup.
Conclusions. The Virochip can detect both known and novel variants of viral pathogens present in RTIs. Given the diversity detected here, larger-scale studies will be necessary to determine whether particular substrains of viruses confer an elevated risk of asthma exacerbation.
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