Gardner et al. (1971) described the isolation of a polyoma-like virus (B.K.) from the urine of a Sudanese patient who developed ureteric obstruction four months after a renal transplant operation. The virus was recovered from his urine on five separate occasions over a period of 16 days, and a noticeable increase in antibody to this virus was found in serial sera obtained from him. Both the pat...

WU polyomavirus (WUPyV) and KI polyomavirus (KIPyV) are novel human polyomaviruses. They were originally identified in human respiratory secretions, but the extent of human infection caused by these viruses has not been described to date. To determine the seroepidemiology of WUPyV and KIpyIV, we used an ELISA to screen serum samples from 419 patients at the St. Louis Children's Hospital and Bar...

CMV: cytomegalovirus JC: John Cunningham PCR: polymerase chain reaction INTRODUCTION Solid organ transplant recipients require constant immunosuppression to prevent graft failure of the transplanted organ. As a result, patients are at high risk for infections, some that are extremely rare and uncommon with unusual presentations. Herein, we describe a pancreatic transplant patient who suffered f...

The Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV), discovered in 2008, drives the development of most Merkel cell carcinomas (MCCs) through several canonical mechanisms. A glaring gap in our knowledge remains the basis by which MCPyV, among all 12 human polyomaviruses, is the only one that causes cancer in humans. Moreover, initial attempts by numerous groups have failed to reproduce MCC in mice using oncop...

Polyomavirus-associated nephropathy (PVAN) has recently emerged as an important cause of allograft failure following renal transplantation. The BK virus is the most important polyomavirus associated with this condition. The mainstay of therapy for PVAN is a prompt immunosuppressive dose reduction in conjunction with careful monitoring for BK viraemia. A number of antiviral agents have been trie...

Malawi polyomavirus (MWPyV) is a recently identified human polyomavirus. Serology for MWPyV VP1 indicates that infection frequently occurs in childhood and reaches a prevalence of 75% in adults. The MWPyV small T antigen (ST) binds protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), and the large T antigen (LT) binds pRb, p107, p130, and p53. However, the MWPyV LT was less stable than the simian virus 40 (SV40) LT ...

Recently, three novel human polyomaviruses KIPyV, WUPyV and MCPyV were uncovered in biological specimens of patients with different underlying clinical conditions. Although it is too early to draw firm conclusions on their role in human pathology, this finding has revitalized the scientific debate on the Polyomaviridae family and their relation to human disease. Seroepidemiological studies show...

Hsp70 chaperones play a role in polyoma- and papillomavirus assembly, as evidenced by their interaction in vivo with polyomavirus capsid proteins at late times after virus infection and by their ability to assemble viral capsomeres into capsids in vitro. We studied whether Hsp70 chaperones might also participate in the uncoating reaction. In vivo, Hsp70 co-immunoprecipitated with polyomavirus v...

Avian polyomavirus (APV) causes an acute fatal disease in a variety of avian species. DNA laddering indicating apoptosis was demonstrated in APV-infected chicken embryo (CE) cells. DNA laddering, however, was not observed in Vero cells infected with mammalian polyomavirus simian virus 40. Expression of APV agnoprotein 1a and agnoprotein 1b induced apoptosis in insect cells and CE cells. An APV ...