The Antibody prevalence of HHV-6 virus in healthy individuals and in lymphoproliferative disorders patients by IFA and variant analysis by PCR-RFLP method

. 60- SUMMARY Human herpes virus-6 ( HHV-6) is an etiological agent of exanthem subitum at human, however as it is a co factor effecting the immune system.it has recently gained quite importance. At healthy adults, the seroprevalance is 80-100 % and infection is taken during the early period of life. The isolates of HHV-6 were seperated into two groups; variant A and variant B with respect to their biological, immunological and molecular properties. It is necessary to determine the variant type of the virus in addition to its presence in the community as the distrubution of these variants are different in various populations and patient groups.There is no study on HHV-6 frequency and variant distrubution in our country at all. HHV-6 virus was shown in investigations to be transmitted more often by spittle. As we live in a crowded populations and hygienic conditions are insufficient in our country, it is considered that HHV-6 infectious would be very frequent. For this reason, it was aimed to determine the antibody prevalence againist HHV-6 virus in different age groups of healthy populations and in lymphoproliferative disorders patients by IFA and HHV-6 variant A and B distrubition in the same population by PCR-RFLP method. In this study 123 healthy people and 50 patients with cancer who have lymphoproliferative defect at ages varying between 6 months- 50 years were evaluated. General seropositivity ratio in all studied populations was found as 79.67%.In an research at healthy population according to age groups,HHV-6 IgG was determined as 75.60% and 22.76%. HHV-6 IgG and HHV-6 IgM ratios at patients with cancer were designated as 96 % and 28 % respectively.When PCR results of both groups were considered.it was found out that HHV-6 positivity ratio was 35.77% at healthy individuals and 46 % at patients with cancer. When variant distrubution determined by RFLP was considered, variant B was examined to be more common than variant A at both healthy individuals and patients with lymphoprolifeferative disorders.