Torque Teno Virus (TTV) distribution in healthy Russian population

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Torque teno virus (TTV) is a circular, single-stranded DNA virus that chronically infects healthy individuals of all ages worldwide. There is a lot of data on the prevalence and genetic heterogeneity of TTV in healthy populations and in patients with various diseases now available. However, little is known about TTV load among healthy human population. In this study we analyzed TTV load in the group of 512 Russian elite athletes, who are supposed to be, by some standards, the healthiest part of the human population.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The prevalence rate of TTV among the Russian Olympic Reserve members was 94% (for test sensitivity about 1000 genome equivalents per 1 ml of blood). Quantities varied from 10³(which corresponded to detection limit) to 10¹⁰copies per 1 ml of blood, with median at 2.7 × 10⁶copies.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>About 94% of healthy individuals in Russian population have more than 1000 TTV genome copies per 1 ml of blood. This result exceeds the previously published data, and can be explained by either more sensitive PCR test system or by higher TTV distribution in Russian population or both. TTV viral load neither depends on gender, nor age.</p

Shotgun Lipidomics for Differential Diagnosis of HPV-Associated Cervix Transformation

A dramatic increase in cervical diseases associated with human papillomaviruses (HPV) in women of reproductive age has been observed over the past decades. An accurate differential diagnosis of the severity of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and the choice of the optimal treatment requires the search for effective biomarkers with high diagnostic and prognostic value. The objective of this study was to introduce a method for rapid shotgun lipidomics to differentiate stages of HPV-associated cervix epithelium transformation. Tissue samples from 110 HPV-positive women with cervicitis (n = 30), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) (n = 30), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) (n = 30), and cervical cancers (n = 20) were obtained. The cervical epithelial tissue lipidome at different stages of cervix neoplastic transformation was studied by a shotgun label-free approach. It is based on electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) data of a tissue extract. Lipidomic data were processed by the orthogonal projections to latent structures discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) to build statistical models, differentiating stages of cervix transformation. Significant differences in the lipid profile between the lesion and surrounding tissues were revealed in chronic cervicitis, LSIL, HSIL, and cervical cancer. The lipids specific for HPV-induced cervical transformation mainly belong to glycerophospholipids: phosphatidylcholines, and phosphatidylethanolamines. The developed diagnostic OPLS-DA models were based on 23 marker lipids. More than 90% of these marker lipids positively correlated with the degree of cervix transformation. The algorithm was developed for the management of patients with HPV-associated diseases of the cervix, based on the panel of 23 lipids as a result. ESI-MS analysis of a lipid extract by direct injection through a loop, takes about 25 min (including preparation of the lipid extract), which is significantly less than the time required for the HPV test (several hours for hybrid capture and about an hour for PCR). This makes lipid mass spectrometric analysis a promising method for express diagnostics of HPV-associated neoplastic diseases of the cervix