The Relationship Between TTV And Human Liver Diseases

Background/AimsViral hepatitis is one of causes of the serious jeopardous infectious diseases at the present time. Hepatitis viruses that have been discovered and confirmed include hepatitis A, B, C, D, E, and G virus. It was clear that 10 ～ 20% proportion of cases with hepatitis are still negative for all known viral markers, which prompted investigations to search for new hepatitis agents. TT-virus was first isolated from the serum of a patient with post-transfusion hepatitis of unknown aetiology with the using of representational difference analysis in 1997 in Japan, and it was named TT virus (TTV) after the initials of the index patient. Nishizawa found that TTV was genetic heterogeneous from all the known nucleotide sequence (DNA) and verified that TTV was high correlation with the hepatitis of transfusion. Most of recent reports are about the research of the prevalence and genotypes of TTV infection in china. The aim of the present study was to investigate TTV infection in Dongying City, Shandong, China, clarifying the transmission ways of TTV infection and the relation with hepatitis, finding out whether TTV is the etiologic agent of non A-E hepatitis and its pathogenic character.Methods...