Cytomegalovirus UL83 Gene as Diagnostic Marker for Preliminary Infection in Pregnant Women in AL-Najaf City

Abstract

Saif Jabbar Yasir, Younis Abdul-Redha AL- Khafaji, Khalida K Abbas Al-Kelaby

The case-control diagnostic study was developed to evaluate the prevalence of Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) among the population of pregnant women (160 women of ages ranging from 15 -45 years old who were attended to get medical diagnosis at Al-Najaf public health laboratory, during a period extending from 15th January - 15th August 2019), and also 50 healthy pregnant women were included as a control group. Data about frequency of abortion, age, and residency were recorded. Diagnosis was firstly depending on Enzyme immunoassay (EIA) for the evaluation of the prevalence of anti- HCMV IgM and IgG antibodies in sera of pregnant women, then confirmed by the quantitative real-time PCR(qRT-PCR), using specific primers targeting of UL83 gene of HCMV. Results presented in this study showed that the overall prevalence of HCMV infection was 97:160 (60.63%) and among women of mean ages± Standard deviation (SD) equal to 26.243± 6.485. Out of 160 participant women; 95(59.38%) of cases had chronic HCMV infection while only 2 cases (1.25%) had acute HCMV infection. Results were revealing that 52:160 (32.5%) of HCMV infected cases were related to women of 16-25 years age group followed by those related to 26-35 years age group with a prevalence of 21.88%. Eight cases (5%) were related to 36-45 years age group, while only 2 cases (1.25%) had 15 years old age. Current results were also revealed that 35:59 (59.3%) from rural area, while 62:101 (61.4%) were from urban areas in Al-Najaf.Recurrent abortion (two or more frequency) was recorded to 17:97 (17.53%) of HCMV seropositivity cases with significant correlation. Results of HCMV UL83 gene amplification by qRT-PCR were showing that the overall prevalence of HCMV UL83 gene was 85% (136:160) of the total diagnostic group, and also positive in 25:50 (50%) of healthy pregnant women, with significant statistically differences. The HCMV positive threshold cycle (CT) of UL83 gene was revealing mean ± SD of 19.0537±6.64501, and 4 fold ratio as compared with that detected in asymptomatic cases by the method of 2^-∆∆CT. The interassay coefficient of variation (CV) of HCMV UL83 gene amplification CT was 34.88%. The qRT-PCR of HCMV UL83 amplification was revealing sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic accuracy of 100%, 96% and 99.4% respectively. While positive predictive and negative predictive values were equal to 99.3% and 100% respectively. We concluded that UL83 gene detection was successful, confirmatory to EIA and more précised for HCMV isolated from serum samples.