Detection and Prevalence of Polyoma Virus BK among Iranian Kidney Transplant Patients by a Novel Nested-PCR

BK virus is an increasingly recognized pathogen in transplant recipient patients associated with nephropathy and emerged as a cause of allograft failure linked to immunosuppressive regimens in renal transplant recipients. This study develops a sensitive PCR method to detect the viremia and viruria as well as the incidence of BK virus infection in renal transplant recipients. A nested PCR method was developed and a total of 45 paired serum and urine samples from renal transplant recipient patients were collected and tested with the developed assay. The threshold of the developed detection assay was 10 copies/μl of BKV DNA in samples. Our results also indicated that about 40% of the urine and 26.7% of serum samples were positive for BKV in renal transplant patients in this study. This Nested-PCR method was found a specific, sensitive and simple procedure for detection of viruria and viremia of BK virus in renal transplant recipients.