The Telomeric Repeats of HHV-6A Do Not Determine the Chromosome into Which the Virus Is Integrated

Aleksey V Kusakin; Olga V Goleva; Lavrentii G Danilov; Andrey V Krylov; Victoria V Tsay; Roman S Kalinin; Natalia S Tian; Yuri A Eismont; Anna L Mukomolova; Alexei B Chukhlovin; Aleksey S Komissarov; Oleg S Glotov

doi:10.3390/genes14020521

The Telomeric Repeats of HHV-6A Do Not Determine the Chromosome into Which the Virus Is Integrated

Genes (Basel). 2023 Feb 18;14(2):521. doi: 10.3390/genes14020521.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Pediatric Research and Clinical Center for Infectious Diseases, 197022 St. Petersburg, Russia.
² SCAMT Institute, ITMO University, 191002 St. Petersburg, Russia.
³ Department of Genetics and Biotechnology, Saint-Petersburg State University, Universitetskaya Nab. 7/9, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.
⁴ R.M.Gorbacheva Memorial Institute of Oncology, Hematology and Transplantation, Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University, 197022 St. Petersburg, Russia.
⁵ D.O. Ott Research Institute of Obstetrics, Gynaecology, and Reproductology, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia.

Abstract

Human herpes virus 6A (HHV-6A) is able to integrate into the telomeric and subtelomeric regions of human chromosomes representing chromosomally integrated HHV-6A (ciHHV-6A). The integration starts from the right direct repeat (DR_R) region. It has been shown experimentally that perfect telomeric repeats (pTMR) in the DR_R region are required for the integration, while the absence of the imperfect telomeric repeats (impTMR) only slightly reduces the frequency of HHV-6 integration cases. The aim of this study was to determine whether telomeric repeats within DR_R may define the chromosome into which the HHV-6A integrates. We analysed 66 HHV-6A genomes obtained from public databases. Insertion and deletion patterns of DR_R regions were examined. We also compared TMR within the herpes virus DR_R and human chromosome sequences retrieved from the Telomere-to-Telomere consortium. Our results show that telomeric repeats in DR_R in circulating and ciHHV-6A have an affinity for all human chromosomes studied and thus do not define a chromosome for integration.

Keywords: HHV-6A; TMR; chromosomal integration; ciHHV-6A; telomeric repeats.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Chromosomes, Human
Herpesvirus 6, Human* / genetics
Humans
Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
Telomere

Grants and funding

The bioinformatics data analysis was performed with the financial support of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency grant No. 022-02 (applied research work on “Development of a methodology for comprehensive virological diagnosis of infection associated with human betaherpesvirus type 6 A/B in children”). The analysis of literature data on clinical aspects was performed with the financial support of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency grant No. 021-12 of (applied research work on the topic: “Development of a diagnostic algorithm for infectious diseases of the lower respiratory tract in children”).