By Renata Mendonça  Campos

Professor do Instituto de Microbiologia, Departamento de Virologia

Nature- Scientific Reports/4:7552/Doi 10.1038 /srep07552

Cycloviruses (CyCVs), a recently proposed genus within the Circoviridae family, are non-enveloped circular ssDNA viruses. An ever growing number of strains of CyCVs have been described in mammals (human, chimpanzee, goat, cattle, bat, pig, sheep, camel), birds (chicken, duck) and insects (dragonflies and Florida wood cockroach). In spite of a high genetic diversity, cross-species transmission seems likely, at least in mammals. However, in contrast with circoviruses, the pathological significance of CyCV infection remains unclear. CyCVs have been suggested to cause respiratory and neurological infections in humans. The presence of the virus was demonstrated in serum, stool or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with acute flaccid paralysis, paraplegia or suspected central nervous system infections in Pakistan, Tunisia, Malawi and southern and central Vietnam. Of particular interest is the description of a high detection rate of the Vietnam CyCV (CyCV-VN) species in the feces of pigs and chicken from the same area as infected humans. In this study, the presence of CyCV-VN and CyCV-VN-like strains was demonstrated in human stool samples from Madagascar and swine feces from Cameroon, showing that the geographic distribution extends far beyond southern and central Vietnam as originally thought.