Am. Werno et al., Prevalence and phylogenetic characterisation of TT-virus in the blood donor population of Auckland, New Zealand, J MED VIROL, 62(1), 2000, pp. 109-114
TT-virus (TTV, patient initials: T.T.), a novel DNA virus, was first isolat
ed in Japan in 1997 from serum of a patient with post-transfusion hepatitis
of unknown aetiology. To date, the contribution of TTV to liver disease re
mains doubtful. The potential for transmission via brood and blood products
makes it essential to establish the prevalence of TTV viraemia in the bloo
d donor population. 413 blood donor serum samples were chosen randomly, the
DNA was extracted and TTV-specific DNA amplified by nested polymerase chai
n reaction (PCR). TTV infection was present in 13 out of 413 (3.15%) blood
donors in the Auckland region of New Zealand using a set of primers targeti
ng open reading frame (ORF) 1. These 13 amplification products (264 bp) wer
e sequenced and TTV genotypes determined. Alignment with published TTV sequ
ences showed that seven (53.8%) of the thirteen positive serum samples belo
nged to genotype 1,five (38.5%) belonged to genotype 2 and one (7.7%) could
not be classified as either genotype 1 or 2. One hundred twenty-seven bloo
d donor serum samples were retested with a second set of primers targeting
the 5' region of the TTV genome in a single round PCR. Forty-three samples
were positive for TTV DNA with these primers resulting in a prevalence of 3
7%. The data demonstrate that TTV is present among New Zealand blood donors
and support the need for further investigation into the natural history of
TTV infection. J. Med. Virol. 62:109-114, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.