Torque teno virus infection among psoriasis patients on biologic therapy

Abstract

Torque teno virus (TTV) is a ubiquitous member of the healthy human virome with broad tissue tropism. TTV can induce chronic active infection without clinical manifestations. Although little is known about the life cycle of the virus, it is clear that infection and replication of the virus are controlled by the host immune system. The plasma viral load reflects the immune status, and the viral load is higher in patients with immune dysfunction compared to healthy individuals. For this reason, monitoring TTV viremia by qPCR is widely accepted as a marker of the immune function in infected subjects.