Torque Teno virus DNA is found in the intracranial aneurysm wall-Is there a causative role?

Nícollas Nunes Rabelo; Marcia Harumy Yoshikawa; João Paulo Mota Telles; Giselle Coelho; Caio Santos de Souza; Natan Ponzoni Galvani de Oliveira; Tania Regina Tozetto Mendoza; Paulo Henrique Braz-Silva; Antonio Luiz Boechat; Manoel Jacobsen Teixeira; Eberval Gadelha Figueiredo

doi:10.3389/fmed.2023.1047310

Torque Teno virus DNA is found in the intracranial aneurysm wall-Is there a causative role?

Front Med (Lausanne). 2023 Jan 19:10:1047310. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1047310. eCollection 2023.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Neurosurgery, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
² Laboratory of Virology (LIM-52), University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
³ Department of Stomatology, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
⁴ Department of Parasitology, Federal University of Amazonas, Manaus, AM, Brazil.

Abstract

Objective: Torque Teno virus (TTV) is a recently discovered virus with high prevalence worldwide, that has been associated with vascular diseases. The aim of this study is to investigate the prevalence of TTV molecular DNA in the intracranial aneurysm (IA) artery walls.

Method: Samples of IA walls were collected after microsurgical clipping from 35 patients with IA (22 ruptured/13 unruptured cases). The samples were submitted to molecular DNA extraction using the EasyMag automatized extractor and performed with Qiagen DNA extraction Minikit 250. The samples underwent PCR examination with primers for β-globin as internal control using the Nanodrop ^® 2000 spectrophotometer. A quantitative (real-time) PCR with TTV-specific primers was performed. Clinical and radiological data of patients included was collected.

Results: TTV was detected in 15 (42.85%) cases, being 10 (45.4%) ruptured and 5 (38.4%) unruptured (p = 0.732) lesions. Multiple IAs accounted for 14 (40%) cases. Five cases (17.2%) had TTV+ and multiple aneurysms (p = 0.73). Association between presence of virus and aneurysm rupture was not statistically significant (p = 0.96).

Conclusion: This study demonstrated a relatively high prevalence of viral DNA in the walls of IAs. This is the first study to identify the presence of TTV DNA in IA's samples, which was found more often in ruptured lesions. This is an exploratory study, therefore, larger studies are required to clarify the relationships between inflammation, viral infection, IA formation and rupture.

Keywords: TTV; biomarker; brain aneurysm; intracranial aneurysm; molecular virus DNA; virus.