Non-HIV retroviral associations with rheumatic disease.
While the human T-cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is the recognized cause of adult T cell leukemia, it is also associated with non-neoplastic, ostensibly autoimmune conditions, such as tropical spastic paraparesis. Moreover,among carriers of HTLV-I, the virus is strongly implicated in the development of a type of arthritis, which resembles rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Mice transgenic for HTLV-I tax develop RA-like pathology and Sjögren's syndrome. Patients with RA and SS in HTLV-I nonendemic regions, such as the United States, are usually serologically negative for antibodies to the structural proteins of HTLV. However, they appear to harbor HTLV-I tax in their peripheral blood mononuclear cells three times as often as individuals who present as healthy blood donors. Because HTLV-I tax transactivates numerous inflammatory cytokines and is not normally found in the human genome, treatment with tax antisense oligonucleotides may provide a new therapeutic approach for selected RA patients proven to be HTLV-I "tax only" positive.
Zucker-Franklin
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Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, New York University Medical Center, Tisch Hospital, Room TH 445, 550 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USA.
D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology*; D001327:Autoimmune Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D015897:Comorbidity; D006800:Deltaretrovirus Infections / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000276:immunology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D005260:Female; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D011379:Prognosis; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity