Global Distribution of Human Protoparvoviruses

Abstract

Development of next-generation sequencing and metagenomics has revolutionized detection of novel viruses. Among these viruses are 3 human protoparvoviruses: bufavirus, tusavirus, and cutavirus. These viruses have been detected in feces of children with diarrhea. In addition, cutavirus has been detected in skin biopsy specimens of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma patients in France and in 1 melanoma patient in Denmark. We studied seroprevalences of IgG against bufavirus, tusavirus, and cutavirus in various populations (n = 840), and found a striking geographic difference in prevalence of bufavirus IgG. Although prevalence was low in adult populations in Finland (1.9%) and the United States (3.6%), bufavirus IgG was highly prevalent in populations in Iraq (84.8%), Iran (56.1%), and Kenya (72.3%). Conversely, cutavirus IgG showed evenly low prevalences (0%-5.6%) in all cohorts, and tusavirus IgG was not detected. These results provide new insights on the global distribution and endemic areas of protoparvoviruses.

Keywords: bufavirus; cutaneous T-cell lymphoma; cutavirus; enteric infections; epidemiology; gastroenteritis; global distribution; human protoparvovirus; parvoviridae; parvovirus; serologic analysis; tusavirus; viruses.

Figure 1

Identification of cutavirus from human serum samples. A) Sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of virus capsid protein 2. Lane M, protein size marker; lane C, cutavirus. B) Electron micrograph of cutavirus virus-like particles. Scale bar indicates 100 nm.

Figure 2

Seroprevalence of bufavirus in Kenya, by age. Several persons (mostly adults) had IgG against >1 bufavirus genotypes; such persons are counted as 1 person in the bufavirus column. Differences in overall bufavirus seroprevalences were statistically significant between younger children vs. older children (p = 0.04345), younger children vs. adults (p<0.000001), and older children vs. adults (p<0.000001).