To investigate candidate genes that influence the risk of HTLV-I associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP), we analyzed 6 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the interleukin-10 (IL-10) promoter region. METHODS: 280 cases of HAM/TSP patients and 255 HTLV-I seropositive asymptomatic carriers (HCs) from Kagoshima, Japan were studied. All subjects gave written informed conse...

Although most patients with the cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides (MF), are seronegative for human T-cell lymphotropic virus-I or -II (HTLV-I/II) when tested by assays that measure only antibodies to the viral structural proteins, the majority of such patients harbor HTLV-I-related pol and tax proviral sequences that encode proteins not included in routinely used serologic tests. Tax...

OBJECTIVE A one year study of the relation between cytomegalovirus (CMV) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) viral loads in a cohort of children with vertically acquired HIV-1 infection. DESIGN Comparative analysis of viral load measurements for CMV and HIV-1 in peripheral blood leucocytes (PBLs) of individual children in relation to age and clinical staging. METHODS Nested polymerase ch...

The purpose of this study was to develop a multiplex PCR that can detect porcine endogenous retrovirus (PERV) proviral genes (pol, envA, envB, envC) and porcine mitochondrial DNA, using a dual priming oligonucleotide (DPO) system. The primer specifically detected the PERV proviral genes pol, envA, envB, envC, and porcine mitochondrial DNA only in samples of pig origin. The sensitivity of the pr...

The susceptibility of Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) genomes integrated in mouse ascites sarcoma cells (SR-C3H/He cells) to DNase I and DNase II was investigated. Approximately half of the viral sequences were sensitive to DNase I and DNase II when 17% and 7.4% of the chromatin DNA was rendered acid soluble, respectively. The results suggest that newly acquired exogenous proviral sequences are integr...

Infection of microglia and other cells of the macrophage/monocyte lineage in the central nervous system (CNS) by human immunodeficiency virus type I (HIV-1) underlies the development of giant cell encephalitis (GCE). It is currently unknown whether GCE depends on the emergence of virus populations specifically adapted to replicate in cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage and whether this als...

BACKGROUND The coreceptor tropism testing should be conducted prior to commencing a regimen containing a CCR5 antagonist for treatment of HIV-1 infection. For aviremic patients on long antiretroviral therapy, proviral DNA is often used instead of viral RNA in genotypic tropism testing. However, the tropism predictions from RNA and DNA are sometimes different. We examined the cause of the discre...

Human T-lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I) is a persistent human retrovirus characterized by life-long infection and risk of developing HAM/TSP, a progressive neurological and inflammatory disease, and adult T-cell leukemia (ATL). Chronically infected individuals often harbor high proviral loads despite maintaining a persistently activated immune response. Based on a new hypothesis for the pers...

BACKGROUND Human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-I)-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) is an inflammatory disease which occurs in less than 2% of HTLV-I -infected individuals. High proviral load, high HTLV-I-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocyte frequency (CTL) and host genetic factors such as HLA all appear to be associated with HTLV-I infection. Previous studie...