Makiko Watanabe, Lisa Davidson, Patricia Smith, Peter F Castellucio, Mladen Jergovic, Jennifer L Uhrlaub, Megan J Smithey, Lori E Fantry, Brett Dechambre, Rachel C Wilson, Kenneth C Knox, Jie Ren, Raymond P Stowe, George Weinstock, Homer Twigg, Janko Ž Nikolich
Human cytomegalovirus (hCMV) is a ubiquitous latent persistent herpesvirus infecting 60-90% of the population worldwide. hCMV carriage in immunocompetent people is asymptomatic; thus, hCMV can be considered a component of normative aging. However, hCMV powerfully modulates many features of the immune, and likely other, systems and organs. Questions remain as to how hCMV carriage affects the human host. We used anti-CMV antibody titers as a stratifying criterion to examine the impact of "intensity" of hCMV infection as a potential biomarker of aging, inflammation, and immune homeostasis in a cohort of 247 participants stratified into younger (21-40 years) and older (> 65 years of age) groups...
March 21, 2024: GeroScience