title: Demonstration of antibodies to human T-cell lymphotropic virus-I tax in patients with the cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, who are seronegative for antibodies to the structural proteins of the virus.
abstract: Although most patients with the cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides (MF), are seronegative for human T-cell lymphotropic virus-I or -II (HTLV-I/II) when tested by assays that measure only antibodies to the viral structural proteins, the majority of such patients harbor HTLV-I-related pol and tax proviral sequences that encode proteins not included in routinely used serologic tests. Tax mRNA has also been detected in their peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Therefore, it seemed possible that these patients have antibodies to the tax protein. To investigate this, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELI-SAs) and Western blot assays were set up, using as antigens the full-length HTLV-I tax cloned from the prototypic HTLV-I-infected cell line, C91PL, and from PBMC of a MF patient, as well as a synthetic peptide made to the carboxy-terminal 20 amino acids of tax-I. Of 60 MF patients whose PBMC were shown to be positive for tax proviral DNA and mRNA, 50 (83%) were shown to have tax antibodies. The antigen derived from the MF patient was most useful in detecting such antibodies. These results demonstrate the need for including other HTLV-related antigens in addition to gag and env in serologic tests used to identify HTLV-infected individuals. The findings underscore the fact that individuals considered seronegative on the basis of currently used tests can be infected with HTLV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, New York University Medical Center, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Pancake
authors.forename: E H
authors.initials: EH
authors.lastname: Wassef
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zucker-Franklin
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D001483:Base Sequence; D016356:Gene Products, tax / Q000276:immunology*; D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies / Q000276:immunology*; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000276:immunology; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000276:immunology* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000472:pathogenicity; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009182:Mycosis Fungoides / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D010446:Peptide Fragments / Q000276:immunology; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000276:immunology; D012698:Serologic Tests; D012751:Sezary Syndrome / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D012878:Skin Neoplasms / Q000276:immunology* / Q000821:virology; D015678:Viral Structural Proteins / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D016356:Gene Products, tax; D015481:HTLV-I Antibodies; D010446:Peptide Fragments; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D015678:Viral Structural Proteins