@article{mbs:/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000692, author = "Prusty, Bhupesh K and Gulve, Nitish and Rasa, Santa and Murovska, Modra and Hernandez, Pilar Collado and Ablashi, Dharam V", title = "Possible chromosomal and germline integration of human herpesvirus 7", journal= "Journal of General Virology", year = "2017", volume = "98", number = "2", pages = "266-274", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.000692", url = "https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jgv/10.1099/jgv.0.000692", publisher = "Microbiology Society", issn = "1465-2099", type = "Journal Article", keywords = "HHV-7", keywords = "ciHHV-6", keywords = "chromosomal integration", keywords = "HHV-6", abstract = "Human herpesvirus 7 (HHV-7) is a betaherpesvirus, and is phylogenetically related to both HHV-6A and HHV-6B. The presence of telomeric repeat sequences at both ends of its genome should make it equally likely to integrate into the human telomere as HHV-6. However, numerous studies have failed to detect germline integration of HHV-7, suggesting an important difference between the HHV-6A/-6B and HHV-7 genomes. In search of possible germline integrated HHV-7, we developed a sensitive and quantitative real-time PCR assay and discovered that primers designed against some parts of the HHV-7 genome can frequently miss HHV-7 positive clinical samples even though they work efficiently in cell-culture-derived HHV-7 positive materials. Using a primer pair against the U90 ORF of HHV-7, we identified a possible case of germline integration of HHV-7 with one copy of viral genome per cell in both peripheral blood cells and hair follicles. Chromosomal integration of HHV-7 in these individuals was confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis. Germline integration of HHV-7 was further confirmed by detection of ~2.6 copies of HHV-7 in the hair follicles of one of the parents. Our results shed light on the complex nature of the HHV-7 genome in human-derived materials in comparison to cell-culture-derived materials and show the need for stringent criteria in the selection of primers for epidemiological HHV-7 studies.", }