High seroprevalence of Borna virus infection in schizophrenic patients, family members and mental health workers in Taiwan
High seroprevalence of Borna virus infection in schizophrenic patients, family members and mental health workers in Taiwan
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DOI：
10.1038/sj.mp.4000484
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发表时间：
1999-01-01
影响因子：
11
通讯作者：
Hsiao, KJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, CH;Chiu, YL;Hsiao, KJ
博尔纳病病毒(BDV)是一种负链RNA病毒，据报道与严重的精神障碍有关。这种关联主要是基于这样的发现，即精神分裂症和抑郁症患者的BDV特异性抗体血清阳性率高于对照组。此外，精神疾病患者血液中BDV转录本的检测率也高于对照组。通过改进的蛋白质印迹分析，我们首先证明了来自台湾的中国精神分裂症患者的BDV特异性抗体的血清阳性率也高于对照组(12.1%vs2.9%，P<；0.001)，支持了BDV与精神疾病之间的正相关。由于病毒感染的传染性，我们进一步检查了与患者有密切接触的患者家属和精神卫生工作者。我们发现，两组BDV特异性抗体的血清阳性率均高于对照组，分别为12.1%和9.8%。这一发现为博尔纳病病毒可能在人与人之间传播提供了一些证据。我们的发现需要来自其他研究小组的进一步独立验证，这一初步观察的临床相关性值得进一步研究。
Borna disease virus (BDV), a negative-strand RNA virus, has been reported to be associated with severe psychiatric disorders. The association is mainly based on the findings that patients with schizophrenia and depression have a higher seroprevalence rate of BDV-specific antibodies than controls. In addition, psychiatric patients were also found to have a higher detection rate of BDV transcripts in their blood than controls. By using an improved Western blot analysis, we first demonstrated that Chinese schizophrenic patients from Taiwan also have a higher seroprevalence of BDV-specific antibodies than controls (12.1% vs 2.9%, P < 0.001), providing support to the positive association between BDV and psychiatric disorders in our population. Because of the contagious nature of viral infection, we further examined patients' family members and mental health workers, who have close contact with patients. We found that both groups also have a higher seroprevalence of BDV-specific antibodies, 12.1% and 9.8%, respectively, than controls. This finding provides some evidence for a possible human-to-human transmission of Borna disease virus. Our finding needs further independent verification from other research groups and the clinical relevance of this preliminary observation deserves further study.