Analysis of human foamy virus (HFV) as a putative pathogen for autoimmune diseases

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We report here the evidence of Human Foamy Virus (HFV) infection in patients with familial Mediterranean fever (FMF) in Japan. Although HFV is the first reported human retrovirus, no definite relation to a specific disease has been reported. Then, we hypothesized that HFV might be one of putative pathogens for some of autoimmune diseases and surveyed to detect HFV gene elements in 320 patients with several diseases including IPF,sarcoidosis, SLE,RA,cancer and 3 cases of FMF.The presence of HFV gene elements in genomic DNA was evaluated by the PCR amplification followed by Southern blot hybridization with HFV cDNA clone. Doing so, existence of HFV gene element was observed in all patients of FMF.None of other patients showed positive signals of HFV provirus. FMF is a disease of unknown etiology characterized with symptoms such as periodic fever, chest pain, abdominal pain and arthralgia. Although FMF is considered to be an inherited disease, there are many FMF patients without having clear genetic background. Our result revealed that a subgroup of FMF in Japan has already been infected with HFV.Because we have very few patients of FMF in Japan, it is difficult to get clear conclusion. But we think that our result could partially support the idea that HFV takes part in the development of FMF which cannot be explained by an inherited fashion alone.