Thesis defense Sergio Kamminga
Polyomaviruses in blood donors: Detection, prevalence and blood safety
On 1 April 2022 Sanquin researcher Sergio Kamminga defended his thesis 'Polyomaviruses in blood donors: Detection, prevalence and blood safety' at the University of Amsterdam
Promotor
Prof HL Zaaijer MD PhD
Copromotor
MCW Feltkamp MD PhD
Venue
University of Amsterdam, Agnietenkapel
Summary
Polyomaviruses are a family of viruses with a small genome, wrapped in a viral particle with a diameter of 40-45 nanometres. Polyomaviruses are able to persist in the human body. This means that a person, once infected, does not lose the virus despite an immune response. Infection with polyomaviruses starts very early in life, but does not cause any symptoms. Afterwards, polyomaviruses are secreted from time to time in healthy humans, for example through the skin or in urine, without occurrence of any symptoms.
Because human polyomaviruses persist and are shed by healthy humans, there is a possibility that these viruses are also present in blood donations. A large part of blood donations is transfused to the immunocompromised population, who can get polyomaviruses-related diseases. It is currently unknown whether human polyomaviruses are present in Dutch blood donations and thus contribute to exposure of these patients to polyomaviruses. In this thesis, the presence of polyomaviruses in Dutch blood donors has been determined in two ways, namely by detecting antibodies directed against polyomaviruses (serology) and by detecting DNA of polyomaviruses using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR).
In this thesis it is shown that the serum of about 5% of blood donors is positive for polyomavirus DNA and on average blood donors are seropositive for nine different polyomaviruses. For follow-up, it is necessary to validate these results in blood components, such as red blood cells, plasma and platelets, rather than serum tubes used for diagnostics. Furthermore, it should be determined whether the viruses detected here are infectious viral particles or remnants of viral DNA. The combination of infectious disease occurrence data from immunocompromised patients in combination with blood transfusion data can be of key importance to determine the infectious risk for this group. The availability of new immunomodulatory drugs will increase in the coming years, as will the number of opportunistic infections in patients that are prescribed these drugs. Solid knowledge of polyomavirus prevalence will contribute to prevention of polyomavirus-related diseases in this group.
