Isolation of Human Cytomegalovirus from Peripheral Blood T Cells of Renal Transplant Patients

Previous reports have demonstrated that human CMV can be isolated from the mononuclear leukocyte fraction of peripheral blood taken from patients excreting CMV. Many renal transplant patients show evidence of an active CMV infection, and in these patients T cell responses are often impaired. Thus the purpose of the current study was to determine whether the virus could be isolated from either the T and/or B lymphocytes of viruric patients 3 months after renal transplantation. The virus was recovered from a small percentage of T cells (3 per 10(6) cells), but not from B cells. Thus it would appear that virus infection of T cells cannot explain the depressed cell-mediated immunity observed in these transplant patients unless a specific regulatory subset of T cells is infected. However, the isolation of CMV from T cells implies that they must be considered as one of the possible cells for virus persistence in vivo.