Interaction of HBLV (HHV-6) With EBV and HIV

A novel human herpesvirus, HBLV, also known as human herpesvirus-6, was originally isolated by us from AIDS and from patients with a variety of hematological disorders (1,2). Since then, HHV-6 has been isolated from AIDS patients from Africa, healthy blood donors and from infants with roseola infantum (Exanthem subitum) (3,4,5,6) by others and from patients with chronic fatigue syndrome by us (7). HHV-6 is a new member of the human herpesvirus family, and is different from other herpesviruses by immunologic and molecular analysis (1,2,8). However, the virus showed restricted sequence similarity to human cyto-megalovirus (9) and Marek’s disease herpesvirus of chickens by DNA hybridization (10). HHV-6 possesses wide cell tropism and replicates and lyses fresh and established human CD4 positive cells (7,11,12).