This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplemental material
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowReprints and Permissions
Right arrow Copyright Information
Right arrow Books from ASM Press
Right arrow MicrobeWorld
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Hoshino, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Cohen, J. I.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Hoshino, Y.
Right arrow Articles by Cohen, J. I.

 Previous Article  |  Next Article 

Journal of Virology, November 2009, p. 11857-11861, Vol. 83, No. 22
0022-538X/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.01005-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Long-Term Administration of Valacyclovir Reduces the Number of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV)-Infected B Cells but Not the Number of EBV DNA Copies per B Cell in Healthy Volunteers{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Yo Hoshino,1 Harutaka Katano,1,{ddagger} Ping Zou,1,§ Patricia Hohman,2 Adriana Marques,2 Stephen K. Tyring,3 Dean Follmann,4 and Jeffrey I. Cohen1*

Medical Virology Section,1 Clinical Studies Unit, Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland,2 Department of Dermatology, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, Texas,3 Biostatistics Research Branch, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland4

Received 18 May 2009/ Accepted 27 August 2009

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) establishes a latent infection in B cells in the blood, and the latent EBV load in healthy individuals is generally stable over time, maintaining a "set point." It is unknown if the EBV load changes after long-term antiviral therapy in healthy individuals. We treated volunteers with either valacyclovir (valaciclovir) or no antiviral therapy for 1 year and measured the amount of EBV DNA in B cells every 3 months with a novel, highly sensitive assay. The number of EBV-infected B cells decreased in subjects receiving valacyclovir (half-life of 11 months; P = 0.02) but not in controls (half-life of 31 years; P = 0.86). The difference in the slopes of the lines for the number of EBV-infected B cells over time for the valacyclovir group versus the control group approached significance (P = 0.054). In contrast, the number of EBV DNA copies per B cell remained unchanged in both groups (P = 0.62 and P = 0.92 for the control and valacyclovir groups, respectively). Valacyclovir reduces the frequency of EBV-infected B cells when administered over a long period and, in theory, might allow eradication of EBV from the body if reinfection does not occur.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Medical Virology Section, Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Building 10, Room 11N234, 10 Center Drive, MSC 1888, Bethesda, MD 20892. Phone: (301) 496-5265. Fax: (301) 496-7383. E-mail: jcohen{at}niaid.nih.gov

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 9 September 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jvi.asm.org/.

{ddagger} Present address: Department of Pathology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan.

§ Present address: Department of Microbiology, Hyogo College of Medicine, 1-1 Mukogawa-cho, Nishinomiya, Hyogo 663-8501, Japan.

Journal of Virology, November 2009, p. 11857-11861, Vol. 83, No. 22
0022-538X/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.01005-09
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





Copyright © 2009 by the American Society for Microbiology.   For an alternate route to Journals.ASM.org, visit: http://intl-journals.asm.org | More Info»