8th Annual BMRP Investigator Meeting - Abstract
Viral triggers in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Weiwei Wang, Meng Bo, Mandana Rahbari, Glenn Ford, Sandra O’Keefe, Tracy Jordon, Gane Wong, Andrew Mason
Department of Medicine, University of Alberta, (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Our laboratory has been studying the global presence of viral infection in patients with IBD to address the hypothesis that disease may be triggered, in part, by viral infection. Previously, we derived partial viral sequences from patients with IBD and their related liver diseases, resembling known animal retroviruses that cause colitis in animals. However, our studies focused on retroviruses and we believe this approach is too limited to address the broader question of whether other viruses play a role in IBD. Metagenomics using massively parallel sequencing has become the methodology of choice to discover new viral agents in cases where an infectious disease process is suspected. To date, we have sequenced colon biopsies, whole tissue from patients undergoing colectomy, mesenteric lymph nodes as well as viral preps from plasma and stool samples. Using the Illumina/Solexa platform, we have obtained ~8x106 sequences per run using either single ended sequencing for 75bp/sequence or paired end sequencing to derive 2 x 75bp data. We have found multiple novel viral sequences with homology to mammalian viruses in several disease states. In additional, we have observed an increased proportion of specific bacteriophages in patients with ulcerative colitis as compared to patients with Crohn’s disease and control subjects. While we anticipate that many of the viruses detected to date will have no relationship with IBD, our studies will serve to describe the human virome in patients’ plasma, PBMC, lymph nodes and colon. Further, case control studies will be required to probe any potential relationship of virus and IBD.