Unusual pattern of antibodies to human T-cell leukemia virus type-I in
family members of adult T-cell leukemia patients
A Okayama, B Korber, YM Chen, J Allan, TH Lee, S Shioiri, N Tachibana, K Tsuda, N Mueller and MF McLane
Department of Cancer Biology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA
02115.
Detection methods for the human T-cell leukemia virus type-I (HTLV-I) for
blood screening and diagnosis generally rely on antibody tests that use the
structural proteins of HTLV-I as antigen. We have found an unusual pattern
of antibody reactivity among people who are at high risk of HTLV infection
due to being a family member of an adult T-cell leukemia (ATL) patient: a
specific antibody reaction exclusively directed to the HTLV regulatory
protein tax, and not to the HTLV-I structural proteins. Sera from 7 of 82
(8.5%) structural antibody- undetectable family members of ATL patients had
the anti-tax reactivity. Two seroconverters were observed. One
seroconverter a healthy resident of Miyazaki, tested negative for
structural antibody, but positive for tax antibody. Two years later she
tested positive for both. The other seroconverter, an Israeli hemophiliac,
tested negative for both antibodies, but converted to tax
antibody-positive/structural antibody-negative. The HTLV-I tax-only
antibody profile was also observed in sera sets from two other populations
at risk for HTLV infection, human immunodeficiency virus-1-infected
patients at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital in New York and Israeli
hemophiliacs. DNA samples from lymphocytes of four individuals with
antibody reactivity only to HTLV-I tax were tested in polymerase chain
reaction experiments; no HTLV-I or -II DNA was detected.
Volume 78,
Issue 12,
pp. 3323-3329,
12/15/1991
Copyright © 1991 by The American Society of Hematology
