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Abstract
TT virus (TTV) isolated from the serum of a patient with posttransfusion hepatitis has been characterized as a member of the Circoviridae, a family of small DNA viruses with single-stranded circular genomes. TTV appeared to infect not only the serum and liver, but also the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). We investigated the prevalence of TTV DNA in human hematopoietic cells, based on 84 mononuclear cell samples obtained from the bone marrow or lymph nodes of patients with hematopoietic malignancies including leukemia, malignant lymphoma and aplastic anemia. Forty-nine (58.3%) out of the 84 samples were positive for TTV DNA with polymerase chain reaction analysis, which was almost similar to the frequency found in the patients' serum. Southern blot analyses using a 3.2-kb fragment derived from the TTV DNA, however, showed no evidence supporting the fact that the TTV genomes are integrated into the human hematopoietic cell genomes, thus suggesting their existence as episomal forms.