No evidence known viruses play a role in the pathogenesis of onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy. An explorative metagenomic case-control study
File(s)pathogens-10-00787-v2.pdf (1.39 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Despite the increasing epidemiological evidence that the Onchocerca volvulus parasite is strongly associated with epilepsy in children, hence the name onchocerciasis-associated epilepsy (OAE), the pathophysiological mechanism of OAE remains to be elucidated. In June 2014, children with unprovoked convulsive epilepsy and healthy controls were enrolled in a case control study in Titule, Bas-Uélé Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to identify risk factors for epilepsy. Using a subset of samples collected from individuals enrolled in this study (16 persons with OAE and 9 controls) plasma, buffy coat, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) were subjected to random-primed next-generation sequencing. The resulting sequences were analyzed using sensitive computational methods to identify viral DNA and RNA sequences. Anneloviridae, Flaviviridae, Hepadnaviridae (Hepatitis B virus), Herpesviridae, Papillomaviridae, Polyomaviridae (Human polyomavirus), and Virgaviridae were identified in cases and in controls. Not unexpectedly, a variety of bacteriophages were also detected in all cases and controls. However, none of the identified viral sequences were found enriched in OAE cases, which was our criteria for agents that might play a role in the etiology or pathogenesis of OAE.
Date Issued
2021-07
Date Acceptance
2021-06-17
Citation
Pathogens, 2021, 10 (7)
ISSN
2076-0817
Publisher
MDPI AG
Journal / Book Title
Pathogens
Volume
10
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/10/7/787
Subjects
CHILDREN
DATABASE
Democratic Republic of Congo
DNA
epilepsy
INFECTION
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Microbiology
nodding syndrome
onchocerciasis
PREVALENCE
Science & Technology
SERUM
TT VIRUS
viruses
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
787
Date Publish Online
2021-06-22