Chromosomal Studies in Skin Diseases

Part 2. Chromosomal Aberrations induced by Herpes Virus Infections

Abstract

It has recently been reported that some viruses cause chromosome damage both in vitro and in vivo. So chromosomal studies were carried out in cultured peripheral lymphocytes from 72 patients with herpes simplex (9), varicella (15), herpes zoster (48), and 25 normal controls. The results were summerized as follows.:
1) Almost all the cases of herpes simplex have not shown any chromosomal abnormalities, as well as a low incidence of chromosomal aberration in controls.
2) The patients with varicella and herpes zoster tended to show the high incidence of chromosomal aberrations such as gaps, breaks, fragments in chromatids or chromosomes as compared with controls, but reunion of broken chromosomes was seen less frequently in varicella. In addition, the high incidence of hyperdiploid and tetraploid chromosomes was charactaristic of herpes zoster.
3) Two unique chromosomal aberrations were found in several patients with herpes zoster. One abnormality was A2 monosomy with a large acrocentric chromosome the size of A2 chromosome (A2 marker chromosome), another was secondary constriction on A3 or Group C chromosome.
The observation of chromosome aberrations in the patients infected with varicella-zoster virrus indicates that this virus in vivo is also able to cause various chromosomal changes.