Relation of HTLV-4 to simian and human immunodeficiency-associated viruses.
Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) is the aetiologic agent of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) in most countries and probably originated in Central Africa like the AIDS epidemic itself. Evidence for a second major group of human immunodeficiency-associated retroviruses came from a report that West African human populations like wild-caught African green monkeys had serum antibodies that reacted more strongly with a simian immunodeficiency virus (STLV-3Mac) (ref.6) than with HIV-1. Novel T-lymphotropic retroviruses were reported to have been isolated from healthy Senegalese West Africans (HTLV-4) (ref. 4) and from African green monkeys (STLV-3AGM) (ref. 7), and a different retrovirus (HIV-2) was identified in other West African AIDS patients. Genomic analysis of HIV-2 clearly distinguished it from STLV-3 (ref. 9), but restriction enzyme site-mapping of three different HTLV-4 isolates and six different STLV-3AGM isolates showed them to be essentially indistinguishable. In this report we clone, restriction map, and partially sequence three isolates of HTLV-4 (PK82, PK289, PK190) (ref. 4). We find that these viruses differ in nucleotide sequence from each other and from three isolates of STLV-3AGM (K78, K6W, K1) (ref. 7) by 1% or less. We also report the isolation of a T-lymphotropic retrovirus from the peripheral blood of a healthy Senegalese woman which hybridizes preferentially to HIV-2 specific DNA probes. We conclude that HTLV-4 (ref. 4) and STLV-3AGM (ref. 7) are not independent virus isolates and that HIV-2 is present in Senegal as it is in other West African countries.
Hahn
B H
BH
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Alabama, Birmingham 35294.
Kong
L I
LI
Lee
S W
SW
Kumar
P
P
Taylor
M E
ME
Arya
S K
SK
Shaw
G M
GM
D001483:Base Sequence; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D017977:Deltaretrovirus / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D005814:Genes, Viral; D006678:HIV / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins / Q000235:genetics
D004279:DNA, Viral; D014759:Viral Envelope Proteins