title: Description of a "trans-Saharan" strain of human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 in West Africa.
abstract: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence and the molecular epidemiology of human T-lymphotropic virus type 1 (HTLV-1) in a group of pregnant women living in Guinea Bissau. We studied 427 consecutive pregnant women attending 10 centers for HIV-1 infection monitoring in Bissau. HTLV-1 infection was found in 2.6% of the patients. Phylogenetic analysis of the long terminal repeat region showed that 10 isolates were of the cosmopolitan subtype (HTLV-1a) and that only 1 was of the widespread Central African subtype (HTLV-1b). All the cosmopolitan isolates belonged to the HTLV-1aD subgroup, which was first described in North Africa and clustered with other Senegal and Guinea isolates to form a significant West African clade. Our data show a high prevalence of HTLV-1 in Guinea Bissau and suggest the existence of a trans-Saharan strain distributed in North and West Africa, which probably crossed the desert in the past as a result of contacts between nomadic and sedentary populations or along trading routes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Sciences L. Sacco, Section of Infectious Diseases, University of Milan, Milan, Italy. gianguglielmo.zehender@unimi.it
authors.forename: Gianguglielmo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zehender
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ebranati
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: De Maddalena
authors.forename: Erika
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gianelli
authors.forename: Agostino
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Riva
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rusconi
authors.forename: Benedetta
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Massetto
authors.forename: Fanny
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rankin
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Acurie
authors.forename: Massimo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Galli
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D006169:Guinea-Bissau / Q000453:epidemiology; D015490:HTLV-I Infections / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology*; D015368:Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011247:Pregnancy; D015995:Prevalence; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D020079:Terminal Repeat Sequences / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D004279:DNA, Viral