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Evidence for Association of Human Bocavirus Persistence with Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative Colitis

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Abstract

Background: The human bocavirus (HBoV) is associated with gastrointestinal infections and was shown to persist in lung and colorectal tumors. Novel data suggest that HBoV may induce chronic inflammatory disease that in turn may lead to tumor development. Thereby it remains unknown if chronic inflammatory diseases like Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative colitis go ahead with a higher prevalence of the virus compared to control cohorts. Methods: formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissue samples from adult patients and children and two control groups were tested for the presence of HBoV DNA with a PCR that was designed to determine between the four known HBoV species. Results: While there was no statistical significance between the pediatric HBoV and control cohorts, there was a significant higher prevalence of HBoV occurrence in adult patients with Crohn and Ulcerative colitis. Discussion: The present study provides evidence for the persistence of the human bocavirus in patients with Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative colitis. With statistical significance the virus was more frequently detected in tissues of the Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative colitis patient cohorts than in the control cohorts. Conclusion: The data give raise to the hypothesis that HBoV could be a trigger of acute exacerbations of these diseases or may be one cause of the diseases.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors would like to thank Ingo Winterfeld and Christine Jacobs from the local Institute for Hospital Hygiene for their help with the RidaScreen assays and Maria Söderlund-Venermo and Man Xu from the Haartman Institute Helsinki for providing the qPCR protocols and plasmid controls.

Funding

This work was supported by a research grant from the Beatrix Lichtken Stiftung, Cologne, Germany, and an intramural grant from the Private University of Witten/Herdecke.

The funders had no role in the design of the study, collection, analyses, and interpretation of the data and in writing of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Pathologie, Kliniken der Stadt Köln gGmbH, Klinikum der Privaten Universität Witten/Herdecke mit Sitz in Köln, D-51109, Köln (Cologne), Germany

    F. Böhm, O. Schildgen, M. Brockmann & V. Schildgen

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  1. F. Böhm
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  2. O. Schildgen
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  3. M. Brockmann
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  4. V. Schildgen
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Contributions

VS and OS designed and supervised the study, analyzed and interpreted the data and wrote the manuscript. MB analyzed histological profiles and delivered pathological results. FK performed DNA extraction and PCRs and analyzed the data.

All authors have read and approved the final manuscript and agree with the submission.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to O. Schildgen.

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Conflict of interests. The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Statement of compliance with standards of research involving humans as subjects. All procedures were in agreement with the declaration of Helsinki in its present form and a vote from the local ethical committee of the Private University of Witten Herdecke (vote no. 73/2012). Due to the retrospective and epidemiological character of the study no written informed consent was required as confirmed by the local ethical committee.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

All data are included in the manuscript. Clinical samples are available on request with written informed consent of the patients. Contact for requests is the corresponding author.

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Böhm, F., Schildgen, O., Brockmann, M. et al. Evidence for Association of Human Bocavirus Persistence with Morbus Crohn and Ulcerative Colitis. Mol. Genet. Microbiol. Virol. 36, 53–55 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3103/S089141682101002X

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