title: Transmission of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 tax to rabbits by tax-only-positive human cells.
abstract: The human T-cell lymphrotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is causally related to adult T-cell leukemia and lymphoma and the neurodegenerative diseases tropical spastic paraparesis and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy. In the United States the prevalence of infection has been estimated to range from 0.016 to 0.1% on the basis of serologic tests for antibodies to the viral structural proteins. Blood from donors positive for antibodies to HTLV-1 or HTLV-2 is not used for transfusion. However, patients with the cutaneous T-cell lymphoma mycosis fungoides (MF) are HTLV-1 and -2 seronegative yet harbor proviral sequences identical to those that encode the HTLV-1 transactivating and transforming gene product p40tax in their peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), and they usually have antibodies to p40(tax). Moreover, a study of 250 randomly selected blood donors revealed that approximately 8% of these seronegative individuals also had HTLV-1 tax sequences and antibodies to p40(tax), while they lacked sequences and antibodies related to gag, pol, or env. Thus, it seemed important to determine whether the "tax-only" state can be transmitted by transfusion. To this end, PBMCs from HTLV-1 and -2 seronegative tax-only-positive MF patients or from healthy tax-only-positive blood donors were injected into adult rabbits, an established animal model for HTLV-1 infection. The PBMCs of all injected rabbits became tax sequence positive. These observations suggest that HTLV-1 tax can be transmitted by tax-only-positive mononuclear cells.
authors.affiliation: New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York 10016, USA.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zucker-Franklin
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Pancake
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lalezari
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khorshidi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D015703:Antigens, CD / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D051927:CD24 Antigen; D017690:Cell Transplantation; D016356:Gene Products, tax / Q000235:genetics*; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D006801:Humans; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011817:Rabbits
chemical_list: D015703:Antigens, CD; D051927:CD24 Antigen; C497889:CD24 protein, human; D016356:Gene Products, tax; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins