BACKGROUNDHuman cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is an important infectious agent that results in neonatal disease and congenital deformity. HCMV infection may affect in many organs. The different symptoms and tissue tropism of HCMV infection perhaps resulted from the genetic polymorphism of HCMV. HCMV UL144 open reading frames encode a homologue of the tumor necrosis factor receptor. It seems important to study the strain-specific variability of UL144 sequence in low-passage clinical isolates and to discuss if the variability related to the clinical HCMV infection.

METHODSHCMV-UL144 gene was amplified by PCR assay in 65 low-passage clinical isolates and urine from 7 healthy children who were HCMV-DNA positive by quantitative PCR. All the positive PCR products were analyzed by Heteroduplex mobility assay and single-stranded conformation polymorphism (HMA-SSCP) and 32 of them were sequenced.

RESULTSFifty-five isolates and 5 urine specimens were HCMV-UL144 positive by PCR. Sequencing and HMA-SSCP analysis showed that significant strain-specific variability was present in the UL144 ORFs. Comparing UL144 sequences and the corresponding symptoms showed that genotype 2 did not exist in megacolon isolates. And genotype 1 and 3 were the major types among microcephaly and jaundice isolates respectively.

CONCLUSIONHCMV-UL144 existed in almost all the low passage isolates. HMA-SSCP assay is an easy and effective method to detect the genetype of HCMV-UL144 sequence. The characteristic of sequences in different isolates showed that UL144 gene may play an important role in HCMV infection.

Cytomegalovirus ; classification ; genetics ; isolation & purification ; Cytomegalovirus Infections ; virology ; Genotype ; Humans ; Infant ; Infant, Newborn ; Membrane Glycoproteins ; genetics ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Phylogeny ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational ; Sequence Analysis, DNA ; Viral Proteins ; genetics

Objective:To explore the association between sibling violence experience and emotional and behavioral problems.Methods:A Multistage stratified cluster sampling was used in Hunan province, 1735 participants from multiple-child family were recruited to survey the prevalence of sibling violence and the occurrence of emotional and behavioral problems with the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (SDQ).Results:According to SDQ total score, the rate of abnormal emotion and behavior in children and adolescents involved in sibling violence was higher than that in students who were not experienced sibling violence [45.6％ (236/518) vs.26.8％ (326/1217) ], the rate in bully-victim was higher than that in pure-victim and pure-bully [52.8％ (132/250) vs.37.9％ (74/195) vs.41.1％ (30/73) ].The rates in children and adolescents who were bullied and perpetrated more than 4 sub-types of sibling violence were 63.4％ (53/93) and 76.9％ (60/78).Conclusion:There is an association between sibling violence experience and emotional and behavioral problems among children and adolescents in rural areas.