Arslan F, Vahaboglu H. Phantom of the inflammasome in the gut: Cytomegalovirus. World J Meta-Anal 2019; 7(7): 346-349 [DOI: 10.13105/wjma.v7.i7.346]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ferhat Arslan, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul 34722, Turkey. ferhat.arslan@medeniyet.edu.tr
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Article-Type of This Article
Opinion Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Meta-Anal. Jul 31, 2019; 7(7): 346-349 Published online Jul 31, 2019. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v7.i7.346
Phantom of the inflammasome in the gut: Cytomegalovirus
Ferhat Arslan, Haluk Vahaboglu
Ferhat Arslan, Haluk Vahaboglu, Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul 34722, Turkey
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest. No financial support.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ferhat Arslan, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Microbiology, Istanbul Medeniyet University, Istanbul 34722, Turkey. ferhat.arslan@medeniyet.edu.tr
Telephone: +90-5055802245
Received: July 19, 2019 Peer-review started: July 21, 2019 First decision: July 23, 2019 Revised: July 25, 2019 Accepted: July 29, 2019 Article in press: July 29, 2019 Published online: July 31, 2019 Processing time: 12 Days and 0.6 Hours
Abstract
Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is frequently detected in inflammatory bowel tissue, especially in corticosteroid-refractory patients, and it has been blamed for adverse outcomes. However, the first acquisition of CMV does not involve the colon. In particular in the colonic mucosa, which evolved due to the gut microbial relationship, CMV promotes inflammation via recruited monocytes and not through replication in resident macrophages. Whether CMV is the last straw in the process of mucosal inflammation, a doomed agent, or an innocent bystander is a difficult question that remains elusive. With this work, we will try to review the relationship between intestinal mucosa and CMV in the framework of basic virological principles.
Core tip: We will here draw an analogy between the cytomegalovirus and the hero of the Gaston Leroux’s “The Phantom of the Opera” novel, with the intestinal mucosa as the opera building. We aimed to emphasize the viral pathogenesis process to understand the elusive character of cytomegalovirus in the inflammatory bowel diseases.
