Connective tissue metabolism in chikungunya patients.docVIP

Virology Journal BioMedCentral Research Open Access Connective tissue metabolism in chikungunya patients Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy1, Sarojamma Vemula2 and Ramakrishna Vadde*1 Address: 1Department of Biotechnology, Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, India and 2Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College, Anantapur, India Email: Sudarsanareddy Lokireddy - l_suda2003@yahoo.co.in; Sarojamma Vemula - vemula_saroja@yahoo.co.in; Ramakrishna Vadde* - krishnavr2007@ * Corresponding author Published: 27 February 2008 Received: 16 January 2008 Accepted: 27 February 2008 Virology Journal 2008, 5:31 doi:10.1186/1743-422X-5-31 This article is available from: /content/5/1/31 ? 2008 Lokireddy et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Chikungunya (CHIK) fever is a viral disease transmitted to humans by the bite of Chikungunya virus (CHIK virus) infected Aedes mosquitoes. CHIK virus is a member of the Alphavirus genus of the family Togaviridae. Previous reports have indicated that infection with CHIK virus produces an acute arthritis in human hosts by large area of necrosis and collagenosis or fibrosis. Results: We carried out the present study to determine the effect of chikungunya on the collagen and connective tissue metabolism in 75 chikungunya-affected people. First, we screened for mucopolysaccharides in urine by Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) test. Appearance of heavy precipitate indicates the presence of higher levels of mucopolysaccharides and later quantified by DMB dye method. The urinary mucopolysaccharide in CHIK patients was 342 ± 45 mg/l compared to healthy controls (45 ± 5.6 mg/l). The collagen