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. 2014 Mar 24;9(3):e92328. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0092328

Figure 4. HHV-6 viral DNA detected in the serum may not reflect contamination from circulating blood cells.

Figure 4

(A) Of sixteen normal donors with matched PBMC and serum samples, 11 were positive in at least one compartment and nine were positive in both compartments. For these nine donors, the data are displayed ratio of the copies per well of serum to the copies per well of PBMC. The dashed line at 1 represents an equal amount of virus in each compartment, while points above the line contain more virus in the serum compared to PBMC. The point circled in red is donor 25611, with the highest ratio of virus detected in the serum compared to PBMC. (B) In the serum samples of these sixteen donors, there is no correlation between copies of HHV-6 and copies of a cellular housekeeping gene RPP30 (there are two copies of RPP30 per cell). The point corresponding to donor 25611 is again circled in red, showing that despite a high serum/PBMC viral ratio, the serum did not contain increased cellular material relative to the other samples.