Introduction of Chromosomally integrated human herpesvirus 6 and its clinical implications

Human herpes virus 6 (HHV-6) is a ubiquitous virus with a high rate of prevalence worldwide. In recent years, a new form of the virus genome has been identified called Chromosomally integrated HHV-6 (ciHHV-6). Further studies are required to elucidate the relation between ciHHV-6 and other clinical complications. The purpose of this study was to summarize the literature on different clinical aspects of the ciHHV-6 integration and its prevalevce in different communities.

Search keywords include HHV-6, integrated genome, telomeric regions and integrated HHV-6. Scientific databases such as scopus, PubMed and google scholar with no specified start date were used for information collection.

About 1% of global populations are infected with ciHHV-6. Real-time PCR can be used to differentiate between ciHHV-6 and HHV-6 acute infection in which the viral load will be higher in ciHHV-6 compared to the acute infection. However, ciHHV-6 can be confirmed by evidence of one copy of viral DNA in hair or nail follicles. It has been shown that ciHHV-6 may disrupt the telomer stability.

Conclutions:

 To date, no treatment has been discovered to remove the viral genome from the host cells. Taken together, the integrated form of the HHV-6 genome could be linked to the various diseases, including heart and autoimmune diseases. But further studies are needed to find its association with other diseases in different geographic area.