Abstract
The worldwide contagion, human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), may cause a series of disorders in infected individuals. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether HCMV infection is associated with the development of gastric cancer. In this study, the positive expression of unique long (UL)133-UL138 and immediate-early (IE)1 genes, which are associated with viral latency and replication, respectively, were detected using nested polymerase chain reaction. A χ2 test and logistic regression analysis were performed to further investigate the preliminary data. The data indicated that the positive rate of UL133, UL135 and UL136 expression in cancer tissues was higher than that in paired normal tissues (P=0.01, 0.027 and 0.013, respectively). However, no significant differences were identified in the UL133–138 locus and IE1 gene when associated with clinicopathological features. Furthermore, seven infection patterns were identified, with the UL133 + UL138 infection pattern representing the largest proportion in the cancer (60.34%) and normal tissues (42.11%). In conclusion, it is possible that the UL133–UL138 locus is important in the occurrence of gastric cancer. The mechanism by which UL133–UL138 locus expression differs in human gastric cancer requires further investigation.
Highlights
Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract, exhibiting high morbidity and mortality rates, in Northeast Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea [1,2]
Previous studies have indicated that the UL138 open reading frames (ORFs) is highly conserved in clinical strains and is important in latent Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection [31]
It was confirmed that gastric cancer is associated with latent HCMV infection, and that the genes of IE1 and the UL133‐UL138 locus are expressed in the epithelium of neoplastic and normal tissues
Summary
Gastric cancer is one of the most common malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract, exhibiting high morbidity and mortality rates, in Northeast Asia, including China, Japan and South Korea [1,2]. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous β‐herpes virus that may cause the infection of multiple cell types in human hosts. Asymptomatic infection, caused by latent state HCMV in healthy individuals, may increase the risk of atherosclerosis and age‐related immune senescence [9,10]. Severe or acute disease may be induced in immunocompromised hosts, including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome patients and transplant recipients, due to the reactivation of latent HCMV [11,12]. An increased number of cases of gastrointestinal diseases caused by HCMV infection have been reported, including ulcerative colitis and esophageal ulcers [13,14]. Emerging evidence has indicated that HCMV infection may be associated with human malignancies, including colon and prostate cancer [15,16]. The association between gastric cancer and HCMV remains unclear
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