Human Bocavirus Capsid Messenger RNA Detection in Children With Pneumonia

Abstract

Detection of HBoV mRNA but not DNA was associated with CAP, supporting a pathogenic role for HBoV in CAP. HBoV mRNA could be a useful target for diagnostic testing.

Comparison of phenotypic and genotypic diagnosis of acute human bocavirus 1 infection in children

“…Detection rates of 15% for HBoV1 DNA, 2.7% for mRNA and 3.0% for high DNA load (> 10 6 copies/mL) in children with RTI are in agreement with previous reports in the literature [7,9,10,14,15]. Taken together, the results suggest that only about a fifth of the children with HBoV1 DNA in the nasopharynx has an acute HBoV1 infection.…”

“…The widely used qualitative HBoV1 DNA PCRs yield results of low clinical specificity and very low PPV [1,2,6,7,14]. We confirmed this.…”

“…mRNA is a marker of actively transcribing virus during an ongoing infection, and a rapidly declining DNA load is the normal outcome after an acute infection. The HBoV1 mRNA test has performed well in studies, providing support for its use as reference [6,7,9,10]. Furthermore, a high DNA load (> 10 4 or > 10 6 copies/mL) in nasopharyngeal secretions has been shown to be a better diagnostic criterion than mere DNA detection by endpoint PCR [8,[14][15][16].…”

“…The diagnosis of HBoV1 infections has traditionally been based on qualitative PCRs detecting viral DNA. Recent studies have however shown that the clinical value of this approach is low due to persistence of HBoV1 DNA in the airways, leading to frequent detection of low concentrations in healthy children [6][7][8]. Clinical specificity of HBoV1 mRNA detection has been shown to be superior to that of HBoV1 DNA detection [6,9,10].…”

Epidemiologic and Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus and Bocavirus Respiratory Infections after Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Prospective Single-Center Study

“…A recent case-control study shown similar rates of HBoV genomic DNA detection in symptomatic (10.4%) and asymptomatic children (7.5%), suggesting that its detection did not imply necessarily pathogenicity in the respiratory tract by itself. This study found that HBoV capsid mRNA detection could differentiate acute infections from prolonged shedding [32]. Still, in our series HBoV detection was a rare phenomenon, representing 3% of all CARVs.…”