SEQUENCE CHARACTERIZATION OF HUMAN BORNA-DISEASE VIRUS

Borna disease virus (BDV) causes a central nervous system disease in s everal vertebrate animal species, which is manifest by behavioral abno rmalities. Seroepidemiologic data suggest that BDV might infect humans , possibly being associated with certain mental disorders. This is fur ther supported by the detection of both BDV-specific antigens and RNA sequences in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of psychiatric patients. For the first time the sequence characterization of human B DV is documented here. BDV was recovered by co-cultivation techniques from the PBMCs of three hospitalized psychiatric patients. BDV was une quivocally identified based on sequence identification of BDV open rea ding frames (ORFs) p24, p16 and p56, as well as of the predicted catal ytic domain of the BDV L polymerase. Each human BDV isolate had an uni que sequence, but they displayed a high degree of sequence conservatio n with respect to BDV isolates from naturally infected animals of diff erent species.