title: Human acute myeloid leukemias may be etiologically associated with new human retroviral infection.
abstract: The etiology of human acute myeloid leukemias (AML) remains uncertain. In order to examine the possibility of retroviral etiology in AML, we determined retroviral antigens related to HTLV-I in leukemic cell samples from 32 AML cases and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNCs) from 20 healthy donors by D-IGSS with high sensitivity and specificity, reverse transcriptase (RT) activity by a simple and sensitive non-radioisotopic RT assay, and retroviral particles by electron microscopy. The HTLV-I-related antigens were detected in 50.0% (16/32) of fresh leukemic cell samples and 87.5% (28/32) of cultured leukemic cell samples. The HTLV-I-related antigen-positive cells in fresh and cultured leukemic samples were 10.2% and 52.8%, respectively. Both frequency and level of HTLV-I-related antigens in cultured samples were much higher than in fresh samples. In contrast, no HTLV-I-related antigens were found in normal hematopoietic cells from 20 healthy donors. Further study results show that RT activity was detected not only in HTLV-I-related antigen-positive samples, but was also well correlated with the level of HTLV-I-related antigens in these samples, and preferred Mn+2 to Mg+2 as a cation. Moreover, typical retroviral particles were localized in most cultured HTLV-I-related antigen-positive samples by immunoelectron microscope. These data suggest that human acute myeloid leukemias may be etiologically associated with new human retroviral infection.
authors.affiliation: Hematology Research Division, Department of Medicine, 2nd Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang Medical University, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Q
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kan
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sheng
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D015486:HTLV-I Antigens / Q000032:analysis*; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000150:complications* / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007951:Leukemia, Myeloid / Q000201:enzymology / Q000821:virology*; D007963:Leukocytes, Mononuclear / Q000737:chemistry / Q000821:virology; D016253:Microscopy, Immunoelectron; D012194:RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase / Q000378:metabolism; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014771:Virion
chemical_list: D015486:HTLV-I Antigens; D012194:RNA-Directed DNA Polymerase