Human T cell lymphotropic retroviruses: association with diseases of the nervous system.
In less than 1% of persistently infected individuals, human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) causes a chronic inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS), called HTLV-I-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. Important prerequisites for disease induction are oligoclonal expansion of HTLV-I-infected CD4+ T lymphocytes, their trafficking across the blood-brain barrier, expression of viral proteins in the CNS, and an increased immune response within the CNS. The HTLV-I Tax1 protein has unique abilities to transactivate viral and cellular genes in T lymphocytes, but possibly also in cells of the CNS. Thus Tax1 supports the persistence of HTLV-I, the ongoing immune responses within the CNS and the destruction of myelin and axons, most pronounced in the thoracic spinal cord.
Kitze
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Department of Neurology, Göttingen University, Germany. bkitze@compuserve.com
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D000818:Animals; D014644:Genetic Variation; D016679:Genome, Viral; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000302:isolation & purification; D006801:Humans; D015493:Paraparesis, Tropical Spastic / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology