Abstract
Gastroenteritis is a common illness causing considerable morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite improvements in detection methods, a significant diagnostic gap still remains. Human bocavirus (HBoV)s, which are associated with respiratory infections, have also frequently been detected in stool samples in cases of gastroenteritis, and a tentative association between HBoVs, and in particular type-2 HBoVs, and gastroenteritis has previously been made. The aim of this study was to determine the role of HBoVs in gastroenteritis, using archived DNA samples from the case-control Infectious Intestinal Disease Study (IID). DNA extracted from stool samples from 2,256 cases and 2,124 controls were tested for the presence of HBoV DNA. All samples were screened in a real time PCR pan-HBoV assay, and positive samples were then tested in genotype 1 to 3-specific assays. HBoV was detected in 7.4% but no significantly different prevalence was observed between cases and controls. In the genotype-specific assays 106 of the 324 HBoV-positive samples were genotyped, with HBoV-1 predominantly found in controls whilst HBoV-2 was more frequently associated with cases of gastroenteritis (p<0.01). A significant proportion of HBoV positives could not be typed using the type specific assays, 67% of the total positives, and this was most likely due to low viral loads being present in the samples. However, the distribution of the untyped HBoV strains was no different between cases and controls. In conclusion, HBoVs, including HBoV-2 do not appear to be a significant cause of gastroenteritis in the UK population.
Highlights
In 2005 a novel parvovirus was discovered in respiratory secretions of young children and was termed Human Bocavirus (HBoV-1) [1]
Peak Human bocavirus (HBoV) infection was observed in children under the age of 5, both in cases and controls, with significantly higher HBoV incidence in children between 1 and 4 in asymptomatic controls than in the cases of gastroenteritis (POR = 0.6; p,0.02)
The majority of the untyped samples (70%) had a CT value of .37 in the screening pan-HBoV PCR, indicative of low viral loads being present in the samples. This represents the largest study to date investigating the role and distribution of HBoVs infections in community acquired sporadic gastroenteritis and in asymptomatic controls
Summary
In 2005 a novel parvovirus was discovered in respiratory secretions of young children and was termed Human Bocavirus (HBoV-1) [1]. Parvoviruses in animals are generally associated with systemic disease and with respiratory and enteric symptoms [3,4]. The association between HBoV-1 and respiratory disease has previously been well established [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19]. The role of HBoV2 as an aetiological agent of gastroenteritis has not been clearly confirmed, to date, no clear association between the presence of HBoV-3 and HBoV-4 and disease has been established [21,22]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
