Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
HTLV-I TAX: ASSOCIATION WITH VIRUS TRANSMISSION AND LEUKEMOGENESIS (MEETING ABSTRACT)
Fifteenth Symposium of the International Association for Comparative Research on Leukemia and Related Diseases. October 6-11, 1991, Padova/Venice, Italy, p. 21, 1991.. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE ICDB/92682377 Essex M; Korber B; Okayama A; Chen Y; Renjifo B; Lee TH; Tachibana N; Marlink R; Dept. of Cancer Biology, Harvard Sch. of Public Health, Boston,; MA 02115
Abstract:
The vast majority of HTLV-I-infected individuals make antibodies to the virus structural proteins, especially the env gene products gp46 and gp21. The high frequency with which these antibodies are detected facilitate blood antibody screening with a high degree of success. A smaller but distinct fraction of HTLV-I-infected individuals make antibodies to the tax gene product p40. Antibodies to p40 tax are associated with virus excretion and/or transmission. Essentially, all HTLV-I carrier men who infected their spouses during a 5-yr period of follow-up had high titers of antibodies to p40 tax. Conversely, only about one fourth of HTLV-I-infected men in the same cohort who failed to infect their wives had such antibodies. Similarly, while children of HTLV-I-infected mothers usually have antibodies to p40 tax, only a minority of age-matched controls that become infected by other routes have such antibodies. Eight different sets of PCR primers and probes directed to different regions of HTLV-I were used to characterize the predominant provirus present in individuals with endemic adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). For at least one third of ATL patients, the predominant provirus present in leukemic cells appears to be deleted in the gag region but not in tax or LTR sequences. Although this defective provirus regularly contains tax it does not appear to be made from reverse transcription of tax mRNA as evidenced by studies using primers directed to the splice junction. Similarly deleted genomes that preferentially retain X gene sequences have been reported for hepatitis B hepatoma. A hypothetical explanation for the selection of such defective genomes can be considered based on a combination of antigenic/mitogenic stimulation for virus replication in immortalized cells and immunoselection directed at cell surface virus structural proteins. Individuals with antibodies to p40 tax who lack antibodies to other viral proteins were also observed with increased frequency in ATL families. The potential significance of 'tax only' reactors for blood screening and tumor development is discussed.
Keywords: Gene Products, gag/GENETICS Genes, pX/*GENETICS Genome, Viral Human HIV Long Terminal Repeat/GENETICS HTLV-I/*GENETICS/IMMUNOLOGY HTLV-I Antibodies/ANALYSIS/*GENETICS HTLV-I Infections/GENETICS/IMMUNOLOGY/*TRANSMISSION Leukemia, T-Cell, Acute/*GENETICS/IMMUNOLOGY Male Polymerase Chain Reaction ABSTRACT 920830
M9281108
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Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
