We propose that severe RSV infection in very young infants is associated with poor blood proinflammatory cytokine production, low counts of CD8+ T cells and with a greater activity of a group of NK cells, that are independent of the major histocompatibility complex class Ib recognition system.

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BackgroundHuman papillomavirus (HPV) and Epstein Barr virus (EBV) have been found in breast carcinomas (BCs) around the world. In this study, fifty-five BCs from Chile were analyzed for HPV and EBV presence. In addition, HPV-16 viral load/physical status and E6/E7 expressions were determined.ResultsThe amplification of a housekeeping gene showed that 46/55 samples (84%) had amplifiable DNA. HPV-16 was detected in 4/46 BCs (8.7%) and EBV was detected in 3/46 (6.5%) BCs. The analysis of HPV-16 physical status showed that this virus was integrated in all of the tumors with a relatively low viral load (range: 0.14 to 33.8 copies/cell). E6 and E7 transcripts, however, were not detected in any HPV-16 positive specimens. Using a Cox-regression model, we found a statistically significant association between EBV presence and poor survival (p = 0.013).ConclusionsThe findings in this study suggest that it is unlikely that HPV and/or EBV play a direct role in the etiology of BC.

implicated the proline/argine polymorphism of the codon 72 of the tumor-suppressor gene p53 in the development of cervical cancer (CC) with the observation that the p53 protein is more efficiently inactivated by the E6 oncoprotein of human papillomavirus in p53 arginine as compared with its proline isoform. These authors further noted that in the United Kingdom, individuals homozygous for the arginine allele were several times more susceptible to HPV-associated tumorigenesis that proline/arginine heterozygotes. Subsequent studies in different countries failed to unanimously confirm this association. Motivated by the high incidence of CC in Chile, we undertook a case control study obtaining the following frequencies for genotypes PP, AP and AA in 60 ICC cases and 53 carefully selected controls: 0.067, 0.250, 0.683 and 0.075, 0.453, 0.472 respectively. A significant difference (X 2 = 3.19 p < 0.02) and an odds ratio of 2.62 supported Storey et al (1998)'s results. In addition, rejecting previous hypotheses about the world distribution of the p53 codon 72 polymorphism, we conclude that this distribution most likely represents ancient human dispersal routes. Several methodological and biological explanations for the results obtained in previous negative association studies are briefly discussed.

In very young infants, RSV cause more severe disease than HRV. Co-infection does not increase the severity of illness. NA1 RSV genotype was associated with major frequency of hospitalization, severe respiratory disease and higher viral load.