The infection of human primary cells and cell lines by human cytomegalovirus: new tropism and new reservoirs for HCMV.

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is asymptomatic in common persons and could reactive in immunosuppression groups. HCMV was considered as endothelial cells (EC) tropism and leukocyte tropism. We hypothesized that HCMV will infect other cell types from human which have not been reported yet. The HCMV released from human MRC-5 was inoculated into eight human primary cells and cell lines, including human dermal fibroblasts (HDF), human embryo-chondrocytes (HEC), human embryo-myoblasts (HEM), and human embryo-kidney endothelial cell (HEK-EC), human marrow stromal cell (HMSC). The cell lines were ECV304, Chung liver cell and L02. Several detection methods specific for HCMV, in which PCR for HCMV DNA sequences, immunofluorescence for pp65 antigen, Western-blot for gB protein, as well as cytopathic effect observation were conducted at different time post-infection. The results indicated that four cells in our experiment (HDF, HEM, HEC and HMSC) were HCMV-positive. The occurring time of cytopathic effect was different in these four cells. Our experiment found the new tropism and new reservoirs for HCMV.