Human Cardiovirus Infection

Theiler murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV) and related cardioviruses cause severe illness, including encephalomyelitis and myocarditis, in rodents. Although TMEV-like viruses have been isolated twice from human specimens, questions have arisen regarding both of these isolates. Now, using modern molecular techniques, investigators have found direct evidence of cardiovirus infection in humans.

In initial work, researchers used a pan-viral DNA microarray that contained oligonucleotides from all publicly available viral sequences as of June 2004 to screen 16 samples of respiratory secretions from children and adults with influenza-like illness who lacked a diagnosis despite extensive tests for respiratory viruses. Four of these specimens were…