evaluation of cellular mir-122 expression in association with the presence of varicella-zoster virus among central nervous system tumors

Background: brain tumors are all primary central nervous system (cns) tumors with unclear etiologies and viral infections, especially human herpesviruses, which have emerged as a hot topic for comprehensive research. objectives: the present study aimed at assessing the molecular epidemiology of varicella-zoster virus (vzv) and its association with microrna 122 (mir-122) expression in cns tumor samples. methods: fresh frozen tissue samples were collected from 60 cns tumor patients and 45 healthy controls. a nested pcr assay was performed to detect the vzv-dna. subsequently, the expression level of mir-122 was evaluated in the cns tumor tissue samples of patients and the brain tissue samples were obtained from healthy controls, using a real-time pcr assay. results: of 60 patients with cns tumors, 29 were men and 31 were women. vzv-dna was detected in 13.3% of the cns tumor tissue specimens. there wasnostatistically significant association between the presence of vzv-dna and different types of cnstumors (p> 0.05). furthermore, the expression level of mir-122 was significantly downregulated in the cns tumor tissue samples obtained from the patients compared with those of the healthy controls (p < 0.05). additionally, the expression level of mir-122 was significantly lower in the vzv-positive tumor samples as compared with those of the vzv-negative tumor samples and the healthy controls. conclusions: althoughvzvplaysnodirect role in the development of cnstumors, the virusmayaffect the biology of cnstumors by decreasing the expression levels of mir-122, which consequently leads toanincreased risk of malignancy. however, the experimental data are not conclusive enough; so, further investigations are needed.