title: [Molecular characterization of human T-cell lymphotrophic virus type II].
abstract: Human T-cell leukemia (or lymphotrophic) virus type II (HTLV-II) was isolated from eight HTLV seropositive patients. Restriction endonuclease mapping of the proviruses demonstrated consistent differences among isolates, and two distinct physical map patterns were observed. These studies have provided evidence for existence of two related, but distinct molecular subtype of HTLV-II, which are designated HTLV-II a and HTLV-II b. Between the two subtypes, the gag region encoding the p19 protein of HTLV-II b isolates contained a 66bp deletion in addition to single nucleotide differences. Immunoblotting methods employing sera from infected patients with each subtype failed to demonstrate any antigenic differences when recombinant gag p19 protein of each subtype was used as antigen. However, similar assays using recombinant HTLV-I and HTLV-II p19 proteins were able to differentiate the two viruses. ELISA using the synthetic peptides corresponding the deleted region gave the negative results for HTLV-II b (0/6) in contrast to the high positivity for HTLV-II a (6/10), which would provide an initial screening method for differentiation of the HTLV-II subtypes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takahashi
mesh_terms: D000163:Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome / Q000382:microbiology; D000328:Adult; D001483:Base Sequence; D015153:Blotting, Western; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000032:analysis; D005260:Female; D015683:Gene Products, gag / Q000032:analysis; D015750:Genes, gag; D006679:HIV Seropositivity / Q000382:microbiology; D015491:HTLV-II Infections / Q000382:microbiology; D015367:Human T-lymphotropic virus 2 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D015682:Retroviridae Proteins, Oncogenic / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral; D015683:Gene Products, gag; D015682:Retroviridae Proteins, Oncogenic