Emerging evidence supports a significant association between human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and human malignancies, suggesting HCMV as a human oncomodulatory virus. HCMV gene products are found in >90% of breast cancer tumors and seem to be correlated with more aggressive disease. The definitive diagnosis of HCMV relies on identification of virus inclusions and/or viral proteins by different techniques including immunohistochemical staining. In order to reduce biases and improve clinical value of HCMV diagnostics in oncological pathology, automation of the procedure is needed and this was the purpose of this study. Tumor specimens from 115 patients treated for primary breast cancer at Akershus University Hospital in Norway were available for the validation of the staining method in this retrospective study. We demonstrate that our method is highly sensitive and delivers excellent reproducibility for staining of HCMV late antigen (LA), which makes this method useful for future routine diagnostics and scientific applications.

Susceptibility to SARSCoV2 infections is highly variable, ranging from asymptomatic and mild infections in most, to deadly outcome in few. Here, we present evidence that antibodies induced by currently circulating influenza A H1N1 (flu) strains cross react with the most critical receptor binding motif of the SARSCoV2 spike protein that interacts with the ACE2 receptor. About 58 to 68% of blood donors in Stockholm had detectable antibodies to this cross-reactive peptide, NGVEGF, and seasonal flu vaccination trended to enhance binding of inhibitory antibodies to SARSCoV2. This peptide also activated CD8 T cells in 20% of healthy subjects. Eleven additional CD8 T cell peptides that cross react with flu and SARSCoV2 were identified that potentially protect against SARSCoV2 in 40 to 71% of individuals, depending on their HLA type.